Savior Complex
by ReneeHart
Summary: Hell is not empty. It is filled with Tom Riddle and a visiting Gryffindor with an unending savior complex that will not leave him alone. Death has a sick sense of humor, Tom Riddle decides.
1. Prologue

**Author's Note:** This started out as a prompt on tumblr, that demanded to be a more fleshed out story. It will be a couple chapters long, it was just a bit too long for a one shot and way too long for a drabble. Woops.

 **Prompt:** "No one has a heart of stone" Tom+Harry

 **Savior Complex**

The air was hot, electric and alive and pulsing. Singed with spells and curses that had been haphazardly thrown across the battlefield, bodies lost among the rubble of the once great castle. The sun hung low in the horizon, peaking above the mountain and trees as the once violet sky became painted with pinks and oranges, a palette of color that seemed inappropriately lovely to the scene before them, the circle forming around the two wizards, linked together by the colliding spells. Emerald and ruby grappled at the center, a knot that bobbed back and fourth as one fought to overcome the other.

The air hissed, filled with the sound of wood splintering and scorched magic before a deafening boom that threatened to tear down the remaining walls with the resonance encompassed them. The knot of magic burst, cascading the courtyard in a blinding light and several of the onlookers fell to their knees, burying their face into their elbows to act as a shield.

When the light subsided, eyes blinked open, jaws slacking in astonished gasps at what lay before them. A wail pierced the silence, followed by several anguished exclamations as a witch with wild hair ran forward, followed by a red-headed companion. The pushed through the crowd, dirt and broken fragments of stone kicking out from beneath them as they came to Harry Potter's side. He was strewn on the ground, prostrate and his legs beneath him at a grotesque angle. The witch prodded him, pulling him into her arms.

Lord Voldemort lay dead some feet away, red eyes open and unseeing. His hand was limp, the elder wand no longer in his grasp.

He was dead, and so was Harry Potter.

 **Death is...**

It is pain. More pain than what could be possible. It is nothing, but it is painful and searing, and he opens his mouth to scream but there is no sound. The void before him- all around him? Engulfing him? Consuming him?- is empty and silent and he continues to try to scream, until the muscles of his jaw ache in protest and his throat feels as if it is raw and he tastes dirty pennies and venom in his mouth.

He is surrounded in white, in blinding blinding blinding white.

He cannot breathe, it is oppressive and suffocating and wraps around his chest and constricts like a boa. His lungs burn with the need, the desire to expand. To fill and consume and supply him with glorious air. To greedily breathe air as though it were wine and he longed to drown in the decadence.

It is chaos and terrible and filled with pain.

There is no coaxing memories for him to toil away with, no remembrance of life and earth and all its delights and failings. There is only screaming, incoherent and jumbled memories pulled from him at random and he can no longer recall their context. He is detached from his life- physically and mentally and his own name sits on the tip of his tongue but does not move any further.

A rabbit twitches from the rafters.

A woman with piercing and fierce green eyes falls to his feet.

A stone face opens it's mouth, the glittering head of a snake slipping between limestone teeth.

It is madness, and hands that he cannot see entangle in hair that he cannot feel. He is not just lost within the void, he is the void, a shadow that is being devoured by the blinding and awful white. He does not know how he came to be here, who he was. There are names, too many to catch onto that bubble and float at the surface of his subconscious before dropping beneath his gasp, empty fingers pinching at air and unable to hold onto them long enough to find one that makes sense. Why are there so many names, so many epitaphs when neither of them seem right? Neither seem to sit in his mouth, as if they are poison and he wants to spit them out. There is a name that is smooth and polished and full and the syllables glide from his tongue but it leaves a taste behind that he does not like, an enigma in its identity and to the senses. And then there is one that is pleasing and stirs something almost like joy or fear or anger but it is wrong, the feeling of his tongue tapping against the palate of his mouth makes him cringe with the remembrance of something he can no longer remember.

It is cold, and for some reason flashes of corpses cut into his vision, glassy eyes and deoxygenated lips. He does not know who they are, but he screams a silent and tormented scream with something (Guilt? Wrath? Terror?) as each one flicker before him. A bespectacled and startled girl. A man with wide and knowing and mournful eyes. A filthy girl, skin pulled taut over the sharp contours of her face. And then there are the eyes, like emeralds that glitter. Like the scales of a snake as candlelight illuminates the scalloped ridge of its skin.

Something wraps around his neck, four long fingers crushing into the knot of throat as the pad of a thumb settles at the juncture of it and his shoulder. They are like ice, so cold that they burn against his skin He wants to scream but he does not have a voice, and he tries to move away from the hand but there is nowhere to go, he is the void and so is the hand. And then there are more, cold cold cold fingers coiling around his wrist, pulling his arms back. Fingernails digging painfully across his back. Fists pound against his chest, and he is in pain and battered and confused and angry and frightened and every emotion that he can name, and all the ones he has forgotten.

One hand rests against his cheek, the palm warm and he leans toward it, fingers brushing aside his hair. And for a moment, between the hands that grasp at his skin and punish, and the flashes of green light that fill his skull, of loud cackling that is impossibly cold and terrifying, he understands. A moment of knowing.

This is death, and it is filled with snakes and haunted eyes and pain and vengeful hands and nothingness.

 **Death is...**

It is welcoming. It is warm and pleasant and smells like the burrow the night before Christmas, the smell of glazed ham and whipped potatoes filling his nose, of crisp sugar and melted chocolate chips. It is soft, and light filters through Harry's closed eyes- sunlight through a window- and he blinks at it. Once, twice...On the third time his vision focuses, and he is on the Hogwarts Express, lying across the seat and looking up at the window.

"How appropriate that we would meet here again," a familiar voice says, and he turns, smiling at the scarred and shredded and so very kind face of Remus Lupin.

For a moment, he doesn't understand, and he grins wider, raising a hand to adjust the glasses which have been skewed from his position. "How...?" he starts, and it is then that he notices they are not alone in the train. Sirius sits beside Remus, reclining with his arms draped on the back of the seat. The hollows of his cheeks have filled out, and his eyes are glowing and playful and Harry thinks that he has never seen him so young.

The door to the compartment slides open, and he sits up, shuffling across the cushions to make room as Lily Potter rushes to his side, a hand cupping his cheek as she presses a kiss to his untidy hair. It is nice and wonderful, and he forgets for a moment where he is- or where he isn't- and he falls into her embrace like he is a child and no longer a man. But he does not care, it is the first time he has felt his mother wrap her arms around him and he sinks into it, only half noticing the hand that settles on his head, ruffling his hair.

James Potter has joined them, and there is something complete and whole and warm and wonderful about the hand that soothes through his hair, that grasps onto his and does not let go.

"I died, didn't I?" he finally asks, knowing the answer to the question before it even leaves his lips. He is met with sad, sympathetic eyes, slow head nods and coos.

"I'm sorry," Remus says, but there is nothing to be sorry for, Harry decides. He had accepted death the moment he walked into the forest, the resurrection stone buried in soft dirt behind him. He had accepted and been prepared for death the very moment he pressed a kiss to the round surface of the snitch.

He had been living on borrowed time from the moment he awoke on the ground, with Narcissa Malfoy searching for a pulse. It had been all the time he needed to accomplish the task before him, to fulfill his prophesied destiny. He had died, but so had Voldemort.

The train is moving, lurching forward on metal wheels and metal tracks and he settles into the seat to gaze out the window. There is a blur of movement, and the shapes and colors shift into discernible figures and places. The train passes through a living room that is raining letters with blood red stamps, through the village of Hogsmeade and laughter and smiling faces. There are werewolves that howl at the moon, fading away as merpeople hold out spears, mouths twisting into a snarl. He watches his own life pass before him, the train barreling through unimpeded. He reaches out, places a hand against the window at the sight of Hermione hunched over a book, of Ron straddling his broom as he smirked triumphantly. But there is no ache, no painful weight in his stomach as he realizes he might never get to see them again. That an entire lifetime will separate them.

There is no pain, only peace.

"Where are we going?" he asks, turning from the window to look at the faces surrounding him. The familiar faces that he had memorized, from the reflection of an enchanted mirror to magicked photographs. From memories and dreams alike. He is surrounded by family.

"Home," Lily answers him, and he is satisfied by the answer even if he does not know exactly what Home might mean. It is not the burrow, or Grimmauld place, those places no longer exist to him.

But it is death, and it is surprisingly pleasant. And it is filled with people he loves, and who love him, and the sound of a train whistle in the distant as the heavy machinery chugs noisily along. It is the smell of pastries and treats, loving hands cupping his chin and kisses to his temple. It is the sound of an infant wailing in the back of his mind, but he can hardly hear it over the stories and the quips that are filling the compartment.

 **Hell is...**

Tom does not know how long he was trapped within the void for. Whether it is seconds or an eternity, if entire empires rose and fell as he burned in the nothingness of death. But slowly, the hands recede, and the tightness wound around his chest uncoil and warmth fills him. The nothingness and the numbness ebbs away, and he flexes his fingers, feels the sinewy muscles in his hand glide beneath skin. Overcome by the sensations as nothing becomes something, as cloth flutters against skin, as gooseflesh prickles from the sudden reawakening.

 _'Perhaps,'_ he thinks, as he inhales deeply, his lungs stinging from the air and the sudden intrusion. _'I was not dead. Just unconscious or cursed.'_

And the thought fills him with such hope, such desperate and clawing hope like a caged animal seeking escape. This is not death, for he is not dead. And whether he is Tom Riddle or Lord Voldemort or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, he is immortal and not even Death himself could conquer him.

The clamor in his head settles, and he is no longer assaulted by images of tufted white fur and crackling green light. He is no longer floating, and his palms rest flat against something solid. He tentatively runs fingers over it, over rough hard wood floor. He lifts his neck but rests it back down, as his head feels too heavy and star bursts cascade over his eyelids as he's overcome by dizziness. So he lays there, resigned for only a moment as he enjoys the feeling of _feeling_.

He is naked, but something- a blanket, perhaps, is twisted around him- and he shifts slightly to move it, wrapping it more comfortably around him. When the vertigo finally abates, and he can feel the tremors through his body as if he is finally settled into himself, he opens his eyes. He is staring at dust, at a forgotten coin pressed against the far wall. At the metal support and spring of a bed. He must have fallen off onto the floor, and he presses his hands on the floor to pull himself up.

His head throbs, and he pauses midway through the motion as he swoons from the desire to fall back down, to fall into the nothingness and the void. He fights against it, however, and moves to sit properly on the floor, resting his back against the bed as he clenches his hand into a fist and holds it at the center of his forehead.

When he opens his eyes, he is unable to stop the horrified gasp, the shocked noise that escapes his lips as light blossoms in his vision and he has to grab onto the bed for support as the room spins around him. The room from his childhood, from the muggle orphanage that he had tried to forget but lay at the edge of his memories.

He ignores the ache between his eyes, the unsteadiness as he stands and finds a folded set of clothes on the desk beside his bed- _the bed_. It is not his. He does not belong here, not in the orphanage or the muggle world. It is just a bed.

He grabs the black slacks and pulls them up, slips his arms into the plain white oxford but does not bother to button it before he begins searching for his wand. Panic fills his chest when it is nowhere in sight, and not even calling to it, attempting to stoke the flames of his own magical core can summon it to him. And the center of his magic, the heat that exists within him is noticeably absent. There are no flames to stoke, the fire extinguished. There is no thrumming as magic courses through his veins, he does not feel the hum of energy as it snaps and cracks around him. It was something that he felt since his youth, something that has always existed and been apart of him for as long as he could remember.

And it's gone.

His fingers are dirty, the pads of them gray from the dust collected as he pawed frantically under the desk and wardrobe. But he does not care, he is uncharacteristically frantic. He needs to leave, he needs to find his wand.

Raising to his bare feet, he takes two long steps to the door and grabs the doorknob, wiggling it back and fourth and pulling, pushing the door. But it does not budge. It is locked, and he tries to will it open, to tap into the well of magic that came so easily to him even as a child.

He falls to his knees, huffing and growling and snarling as he becomes more aggressive, heaving his entire weight against the door and back, fingers prying into the small crack between it and the door frame. He tries pulling at it, trying to help wiggle it free. But he cannot, and the desperation from before returns to him so quickly that he is thankful he is alone, that no one can see the near feral way he pulls at the door. The manic gleam to his eyes that he is unable to mask.

He does not know how long he sat trying to escape the room, but when he finally sits back, his hands are slick with blood and his fingernails are cracked and jagged. There are lines of blood from where he dragged his fingers over the door, smears along the wood from his palm. His jaw clenches, and he looks to the window, to see if there is anyone he can signal to. Anyone he can demand help him.

There is only white nothingness, and he falls to the floor, his knees too weak to support him.

He is dead.

This is hell, and it is filled with locked doors and dead magic and bloody hands.


	2. One

_Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of its properties, and I am not making any money from this work of fiction._

 **1.**

Harry rolled over so that he was on his back, folding his arms and using them as pillow between his head and the ground. The grass that surrounded him was plush and soft, not prickly like the grass of the Dursley's home. The sky above him was a kaleidoscope of colors, connected diamonds of purple and blue and violet and magenta. A large, looming moon sat above him, full and wonderful and surrounded by hot pinpricks of light, twinkling stars that winked at him from the net above.

"Is the moon here better?" he asked, not turning away from where he was focused, his eyes dragging imaginary lines between the stars to create new constellations. They moved with it, zooming across the sky in a trail of star dust and fragments to rest in their assigned place, blinking eagerly as they arranged themselves into different shapes and patterns.

Lupin shrugged from beside him. "I'm not sure. I prefer it to be sunny. Sometimes rainy. It's never night for me, though," he answered. The world- Heaven? The afterlife? The chemical reaction as neurons fired off and died, an everlasting hallucination drawn out during his death?- was a great source of confusion for Harry, and he pursed his lips at it. It did not make sense, it did not abide by any laws or rules. It seemed to shift around him, adjusting as he desired and wished something into existence. It was different from him than it was for Lupin, or his mother or father. But it was wonderful and strange. There was a magic to it, magic even more powerful and mesmerizing than what he had known and experienced.

He felt eleven years old again, like he had opened his eyes and had been welcomed into a fairy tale that existed only for him. He had asked about it, wanting answers that could not be given. His mother would just smile, tap a finger to her chin. "It's whatever you need it to be," was all she had said, having no more knowledge to offer him.

He wanted it to be home, to be Hogwarts. He wanted it to be the bed in Ron's room at the burrow, wanted it to be nestled between Ron and Hermione as the Weasley's gathered together for a dinner. But there were some things it could not replicate, and he had resigned himself to finding comfort in what he did have. Finding comfort in the fact that they were not there with him, because they were alive and they were living and they were finally free.

It had taken some time, but he learned how to visit them. To close his eyes and breathe in rhythm with the sounds that surrounded him, the sound of crickets and cicadas and the water rushing over rocks of a nearby river (did the river exist only for him, or did the others hear it too?). And if he envisioned them well enough, picturing each and every individual strand of hair, eyelash fanning over the fractured colors of their pupils, he would be rewarded. He would be sitting with them, unseen and unheard as if he had merely stepped into a pensieve. Not even a shadow of a ghost, just a presence.

It had been hard at first, more punishment than reward. And he had struggled with it, reaching out a hand in comfort, answering questions and speaking to nothing. They never responded, talking over him and moving away from his reach. But he had taken solace in the fact that they were safe, heartbroken and crying and rebuilding, but safe.

He had even attended his own funeral, though he did not stay for long. The morbid curiosity had been abated, and it had been too difficult to remain. To be reminded that he did not belong there anymore, he was an intruder.

The more time that passed- time was an abstract concept in this world, and moved as fast or as slow as he deigned it to, and so it was easier to measure time on earth- the more he visited, the less he became distraught by it. It was comforting to know that his parents truly had been there with him, by his side steadfast and constant. They had cried with him, they had laughed with him.

"Just wait until Petunia gets up here!" Lily had declared one day, but the anger had died from her as quickly as it had come. It was difficult to maintain emotions by what happened on below, and required more effort than it was worth to be angry. It truly was inconsequential, in the end.

But it was not so easy for Harry to forget, for him to mourn and rage as he recalled his life. The lives of those that moved on without him. It would get easier, they had assured him. Everything would be easier with time, and he had nothing except time. But it was not so simple, and his nerves were only growing more frayed by the constant crying, the wailing of an infant that ebbed somewhere on the outskirts of his brain, like a memory he couldn't quite recall. It would not stop, no matter how much he wanted it to. No matter how much he needed it to.

He hadn't bothered to ask if others had heard it, knowing that it- like everything else- was just for him.

It was maddening, a singularity in the peaceful world.

Lupin rose suddenly, a spring to his step that Harry was still not used to. "I think everyone else is having a picnic. Would you like to join them?" he asked.

Everyone. His mother, father. Sirius. Tonks. Moody. Fred. A picnic of dead people. It had been exhilarating to see them all, passing through as they wished from their own personal heavens, connected together by a bridge. And he wondered aloud if he would ever see anyone else he had known. Dumbledore, or even Snape. He had been surprised when his father reacted with kind indifference, when Sirius did not snort or make a bitter, hate filled remark. "His death was too recent to forgive and forget, I think. I'm sure eventually he might wander over though," James had surmised. Harry had hoped so, if only once so he could apologize for ever doubting him.

"No," Harry answered, sitting up and wrapping his arms around his knees. Several shooting stars shot across the sky, crackling with the force of their propulsion. "Maybe in a bit."

Lupin nodded, walking away and heading into the garden- was it a garden for him? Or was it a forest? An open meadow? The uncertainty of the world was unsettling, if he were being honest.

He sat by himself, considered closing his eyes and breathing in and out until he was sitting beside Ron and Hermione, Ginny and Neville and Luna. He tried, focusing on the sounds around him, the music of the heaven like world. But he was too distracted, the sound of the not-quite-infant crying, echoing around in the cavern of his mind and becoming amplified by the silence.

He opened his eyes, scoffing in annoyance. He knew it, the high-pitched, chilly tone beckoning something within him. But he couldn't quite recall it. It was just outside of his grasp, dancing on the edge of his memory.

Heaven wasn't nearly as peaceful as it should be.

Pulling himself up, he began to walk down the hill, his lips skewed in thought as he tried to follow the crying. It was impossible, though. It was everywhere and nowhere all at once. Reverberated within him rather than outside, and for a moment he feared that maybe he had just gone insane and was actually locked up within a permanent ward at St. Mungo's, living a fanciful delusion.

Before he could give it anymore thought, the sound of a steam whistle cut through the night, and he jumped at the sudden noise. He twisted his body in the direction of it, eyebrows raising as the Hogwarts Express came barreling between trees in the distance, a set of railroad tracks sprouting from the ground before it as if they were they first of Spring's bloom. The train- perhaps suddenly aware of Harry- continued to chug forward, slowing until it came to a screeching halt, several cars passing him by before one came to a stop right before him. The train hissed, a plume of smoke snaking and dissipating into the sky as the doors sprung open, gears creaking with the action.

"Oh?" he said aloud, narrowing his eyes in suspicion at it. He hadn't seen the train since he had gotten off of it the day he died. There hadn't been a need for it, he supposed, but there certainly wasn't a need for it now.

Was there?

He looked behind him at the house in the distance, the warm glow surrounding it as fireflies fizzled in and out of existence. It wasn't as if anything could happen to him, not anymore. He was already dead. And if he needed to return, he would be able to do so.

Resolving himself, he reached out to grasp the metal bar beside the door, using it to hoist himself up onto the raised steps. His feet clattered over it, and he poked his head into the car to look around. "Hello?" he called, but he was met with silence.

Except for the crying- had it gotten louder?

Any apprehension was forgotten, his brows twitching in annoyance at the unending lamentation. He frowned, stepping fully into the car and placing his hands on the walls on either side of him, squinting into the darkness. Was this the source of it? Was the infant in here?

The door closed with a slam, and he was tossed down the aisle as the train lurched forward. He shuffled along the floor, bracing himself against the wall as he tried to find some center of gravity. And despite the screeches that echoed in his head, growing more fervent and anguished as the train moved forward, and the twinges of fear and panic as he headed into the unknown, he laughed.

He really was reckless, making ill-thought out decisions.

No wonder he was dead.

-xXx-

Tom did not know how much time had passed. It was indeterminable, and no matter how long he waited, the light outside his window did not diminish. It did not fade to a gray, to the shadows of nighttime. There was no way to tell the passage of time, to distinguish a minute from an hour from a year. Time did not exist here- in Hell- and though the restraints from it should have been freeing, it was instead constricting, claustrophobic. His fingers twitched nervously, his toes curled.

After what could have been an hour or days or weeks, he finally stood, inhaling a calming breath as he ran a hand through his hair (he had forgotten how it felt, the soft locks beneath his hand and the messy curls they were becoming in his erratic state.) He settled his fingertips onto his forehead- the blood dried, maroon flakes flicking off and landing on the edges of his cheekbones and nose. Dragging his fingers down his face, he found that it had returned to the visage of Tom Riddle. The contours and angles which had become smoothed and blurred as time progressed were sharp once more, protruding from his skin as if trying to break free. The bridge of his nose was raised, and the nostrils were very much human. The thin, lipless mouth was no more, and he pushed his index finger against his plump lower lip.

Lord Voldemort was gone, leaving only Tom Riddle to suffer in Hell.

He might have laughed if it weren't so awful. Rotten. He was dead, trapped in the one place he sought so desperately to escape, and was stripped of all his magic. Dante himself would swoon at the poetic justice, the irony of his suffering and wonder how he did not envision something so cruel. So fitting.

Death had a terrible sense of humor.

But Death was not infallible, he knew. The existence of the Deathly Hallows- of the very elder wand that was the catalyst to his death- proved such truths. Death could be tricked, manipulated, and if anyone were to be able to challenge the entity, it would be him. He was a master of manipulation, he was intelligent and ambitious and resourceful and he would find a way out of this. He would claw his way out of the pit of hell until his fingers were nothing but bone and his hair reeked of fire and brimstone.

He glanced around the room, the gears in his head twisting and grinding over each other. It was bare- barer even then when he was a resident. The walls were gray and empty and clean, and there was nothing on the surface of the desk. On the windowsill.

Striding over to the small table that seemed so much smaller than he remembered, he grabbed onto the knob of the drawer that sat in the center, pulling it open. His brows rose, lips twisting into a ferocious snarl.

Death thought he was a real comedian, didn't he?

Sitting in the drawer, neat and perfect and not a blemish on the leather bound cover and just as it was the day he conjured it, was a diary. Black and simple, plain if not for the gold imprinted letters at the bottom. T.M. Riddle.

There was a quill- nothing fancy or ornate, efficient and nothing more- and a sealed ink well beside it, placed with great care in the drawer.

He squeezed the knob, wanting to slam it shut with such force that the entire thing collapsed, legs clattering to the wooden floor. But instead he reached in, pulling the items out and settling them on the surface of the desk. If it was a game Death wanted, than he would be remiss if he did not indulge in play.

He pulled out the chair roughly, settling down in it with little grace and scowling when his knees hit the table. Experimentally, he picked up the quill, dipping it into the ink well as he used his other hand to open the diary, holding it flat to a random page. He paused as he his hand hovered over it, unsure of what to write as he twirled the tip so that it tickled along his chin.

After a moment, he wrote _'Hello?'_ , his typically elegant calligraphy forgotten as the words scratched hastily onto the yellow page. He waited then, not aware that he was holding his breath until his chest burned and he exhaled sharply, shoulders sagging. The words remained, the shine of the black ink dulling as it dried. He closed his eyes, aware of the disappointment and all at once feeling foolish for allowing any hope to hinge upon the diary. Who might respond to him, when the horcrux had been destroyed long ago?

He set the quill down, rubbed a hand over his face. He had never given thought to death, having preferred to leave the subject to poets and philosophers who would succumb to it. There was no need to dwell on something that he would never experience, and his rumination on it had only been in regards to avoiding it.

But he did not avoid it, and now he was dead and what? In Hell? Or was this merely purgatory, and he would have to wait for an eternity as his sins were weighed and an appropriate punishment was created for him? Would he toil away in here, in this damned room that had been the four walls that were built around his shameful beginnings, his muggle upbringing, until the end of time? Until someone- demon or angel- game to assign him to his true eternity of suffering?

There was a creak from behind him, the sound of a doorknob twisting and a door swinging open, and he stood so quickly the chair fell from beneath him, clattering on the floor. He paid it no mind, his eyes widening as they meet familiar green eyes, a head poking in through the door. They were the same eyes that taunted him in the void. The color of snakes, of the killing curse as it crackled in the night.

"Potter?" he asked, sounding more incredulous than he cared for.

But it was alright, as his own surprise was mirrored on the face of Harry Potter as the young wizard blinked owlishly at him, his mouth gaping open. "Tom?" he asked, his voice high and crackling in his confusion.

He settled against the desk, hands gripping onto it. He wanted to grab him by the shoulders, shake him violently and ask him questions, demand to know how? How did he open the door that had nearly ripped his fingers to the bone? How did he find him? How did he get here? Was he dead too?

But he stopped himself, and his lips twitched. Or perhaps this is his punishment. The first of many trials he would endure as atonement for his crimes and sins. The thought alone was enough to make him sneer, make him want to throw himself through the window and welcome the void. Potter wass punishment enough- he was the reason he is here! If not for him and damnable prophecy he might never have succumbed to death. He would never know what it was like to die, like being plunged through the frozen surface of a lake and into the icy waters below. To drown in nothing.

"What's all the blood from?" Potter asked as he stepped tentatively into the room, looking nervously at the congealed blood on the door. Tom bit his lip, debating against ignoring him and just giving in, indulging whatever cruel demon or angel watched over him, grinning with amusement at his torture.

He didn't have to decide, as Potter looked to his hands, understanding settling in his eyes. "You can't get out," he said, a statement.

"No," he snarled, lips curling in disgust. "I can't _'get out'._ "

But Potter got in. And though it might have been a trick, an illusion, he was unable to stop himself, moving towards the room and smirking when the boy shrunk away, pressing himself flat against the wall. He stood only a foot from the door, his hand reaching out to hold it open, when it snapped back into its frame, the wood shaking from the force.

He swallowed thickly, trying to not let his eyes widen in front of Potter. There were many things he no longer possessed- his magic, his life. But he would be damned _(See, Death? You're not the only one with a sense of humor)_ if he lost his dignity as well. His lips twitched, and he stepped back, turning from the door as if he was nonplussed by its refusal to let him through.

"What are you doing here?" he asked as he pressed his palms flat on the desk, leaning over it. "Were you sent to make me see the error of my ways? To get me to plea for salvation and redemption? I regret to inform you, it's a fool's errand and you're wasting your time." He struggled to keep his voice even, his jaw clenching and his teeth grinding. Control and dignity. The few things he had left.

He could hear the confusion in Potter's voice as he said, "Sent? What...? No, I got on the train and it..." he paused, and Tom heard him shuffle, twist the doorknob and open it as he peered back out into whatever existed beyond his room. His hell. "When it stopped, I got out and...this was the only door. I didn't know _you_ would be in here."

The way he said the word you, as if it were poison and he meant to cast it from his mouth, made Tom smirk, one edge of his mouth twisting upward. "Train?" he asked, mockingly. "I wasn't aware my personal hell was a stop at King's Cross. How delightful."

He turned around, resting against the desk and folding his arms over his chest. "Are you dead then, or just an illusion? It's rather hard to tell- if you are a figment crafted by my tormentors, then they did a remarkable job at copying your slack-jawed expression. True artists, I must confess," he began, and Potter balked, his lips pinched into a thin line.

"I'm not a figment, and if it weren't for the pathetic crying coming from here, I never would have bothered you. Keep it quiet from now on, and you won't see me again," he retorted, his cheeks turning scarlet in his anger.

It was then Tom's turn to balk, and he spoke through gritted teeth as he said, "I have not been crying. Perhaps it is the weeping from up above that you hear. Poor little savior Potter, dead and gone. The whole world is probably lamenting the fall of their great hero."

Green eyes narrowed at him. "It may be up above for you, but not all of us are rotting in the pits of Hell," he said, and Tom paused at the tone in his voice, low and as if he spoke through gravel. It was bitter, filled with hate and anger and defiance. It sounded unfamiliar, and even Potter seemed surprised by it, his eyes downcast for a second.

"Don't get high and mighty on me. Everything's above you when you're buried eight feet in the earth."

That did the trick. The door was thrown open, slamming against the wall it sat on before bouncing back. But Potter had already disappeared through it, and it settled firmly into its frame, leaving him alone once more. He didn't even bother trying to open it, knowing that it would not budge for him. He was trapped, and only Potter was allowed to come and go as he pleased.

It truly was Hell.

-xXx-

He opened the doors of his wardrobe, frowning. At the bottom of it, placed delicately in the center of the shelf that sat above the drawers, was a ring. An ugly, hideous ring, with a crooked band and too heavy stone, dark and stormy and unremarkable in every way. It was clumsily made, such poor quality that it made him smirk, a chuckle vibrating in his throat. "Not as good with the jewelry as you are with ironic punishment, eh?" he said aloud. The room did not answer back, Death did not answer back. But he hoped he heard him.

The bastard deserved it.

-xXx-

He pulled each drawer from the wardrobe, jostling them free from the metal track they were nestled onto and tossed them aside after inspecting them and making sure they were empty. They clattered behind him, but he ignored it as he continued to tear through them. When they were all removed, he bent low until he was almost flat along the floor, peering into the darkness.

Pressed into the back, the chain wound around a screw that helped to keep the piece of furniture from falling apart, was Slytherin's locket.

-xXx-

He tore the room apart, ripping floorboards to reveal the crossbeams below, slivers of wood lodged into his bloodied and shredded hands as he tossed planks aside. A nail caught on his wrist, dragging across the skin and hissed at the sting, the throb, as he continued to work through it. Blood coated his arm, his forearm pink and tender and slick with the tacky substance that coated his slacks, stained his shirt sleeve so it clung to him. The woods were stained with it, but he did not stop until he found it, glittering in the light of the nothing beyond his window.

The diadem, nestled along a corner created by the intersecting two by fours. He reached in with his hand- the clean one that didn't shiver with the loss of blood and pain- and plucked it out. He had to wiggle it, contorting himself through to get it out of the opening. But he did, and he switched it over to his other hand, tarnishing the silver with his blood.

-xXx-

He shook out the blankets.

The sheets.

Dug into the mattress, scraping his knuckles on metal springs.

He tossed it aside.

Tossed the whole bed aside.

There was nothing.

-xXx-

He sat, perched uncomfortably on one of the exposed beams from beneath the floor, his injured arm pressed against his torso so that his shirt was almost entirely saturated now. It clung to him, and he shifted against it. He had tried- and failed, not surprisingly- to use magic to heal himself, to clean his shirt and to right the room that was now rumpled and destroyed and just as chaotic as his head. But the room remained a mess, and his arm continued to burn in agony and he was bleeding more blood than he thought he had in his entire body.

Did he even have a body? Would he just keep bleeding, nothing to clot it and heal it but unable to become unconscious, to die from blood loss? Would the room simply fill with it, until he was submerged and drowning once more, opening his eyes to see nothing but red before him?

His toes curled around the beam they were propped up on, and he tried to steady the commotion of his mind, the clamor of thoughts.

He was missing some.

He had ripped up every plank of wood, had taken apart the wardrobe. He shook out the blanket and sheet and even ripped into the seams of the thin mattress. He had done everything short of breaking into the walls to find it. Yet, they still evaded him.

Hufflepuff's cup. Nagini.

He clenched his fist in anger, punching the wall his back rested against. What was the purpose of giving him so many, handing him some sort of clue, only to withhold the others?

Was it a test? Was there a purpose? Something he was meant to do? Or was it just a game? Was it amusing to watch the Dark Lord on his knees, neck craned awkwardly as he peered into every nook and crevice? Was it funny that he left a trail of blood, a reminder of the path he made around the room? Was it entertaining as he hunted for his very own horcruxes, the single items in his life that he desperately tried to hide, to make impossible to find and protected against all cost?

He was startled from his reverie by a horrified gasp, and he lazily turned in the direction of it. His vision swam in and out, his head felt too heavy for his neck and an exhaustion permeated his bones, a sluggishness so deep it made him feel like his muscles were replaced with lead. Potter had returned- after what? Days? Months? Years? A lifetime? It was almost laughable, how time bled into itself.

"What the...I don't think killing yourself is exactly productive," he said, his nose crinkling in repulsion. It smelt like dirty metal and rotting wood and mildew, but he had grown used to it. The pounding in his head and the sear of his arm had become the only thing his senses were aware of.

"I thought I had gotten rid of you," he snapped back, and he frowned when Potter only chortled quietly.

"You did get rid of me. That's actually how I'm here, remember?" he countered, and he rose a brow at him. Was he making a joke? About being dead? The thought was enough to make him twist his mouth at the other wizard. He hardly seemed how death- his own, at least- could be funny. It was dreadful.

Potter shuffled his weight from one foot to the other, as if awkward at the reception to his quip. "It got louder," he amended, then added after a second, "the crying, I mean. I tried to ignore it, but your Hell is starting to become a shared experience, I think. I got on the train and it brought me here again."

He turned away, resting his head against the wall and staring blankly ahead of him, at where the metal frame of his bed lay against the opposite wall. "I already told you, I don't cry," he said, his voice deep and commanding despite the tremor in his arm that threatened to invade the rest of him.

"Well, I've been thinking about that," Potter said, taking a step into the room and into the space between two beams. He frowned, looking around him as he was unsure of how to proceed. After a second, he rose his hand, fingers curling into the the palm in hesitation before straightening once more as he flourished his hand through the air.

As if overcome by a sudden wind, the air exploded with magic. The drawers rose, suspended by something unseen as they slid back into place, the wardrobe being built around them. Wooden planks were flung into the air, straightening themselves out before settling down, aligning as invisible hammers righted the nails back into place.

Tom's legs rose out above him, making room so that the exposed beams beneath him were covered with the floorboards. A thud resonated in the small, enclosed space as the bed fell back onto the rebuilt floor. Legs scraped along as it was dragged into the corner, groaning in protest as the mattress was thrown on top. Springs creaked, thread wove by invisible hands pulled the stitches together, repairing the tears made into it.

The desk and chair rose from their heap, rebuilding themselves in mid air before landing to the floor with a thud. The chair wobbled, once, twice, before settling neatly in its place.

Any evidence of a struggle, of Tom tearing through the room like a madman, was erased, and was as neat and clean as the day he awoke int it. Whenever that was.

He turned to meet Potter's gaze, and the Gryffindor shrunk away from him. From the hunger in his eyes, the carnivorous glint. The avarice and greed that made him hideous and crooked and sinister looking. The air still smelt like magic, was still electric from the wave of his hand and instead of calming him, wrapping him in something familiar, it made his hair stand on end. His skin crawl over him like it did not belong.

How cruel it was, to be so close to magic and still not feel it within him. Unable to consume it.

He stared at Potter with the covetous gleam to his eyes, but the Gryffindor did not falter, raising his chin defiantly as he walked on the sturdy floor until he stood just in front of Tom. He wavered briefly before holding his hand out, looking at him expectantly.

"Give me your arm. I'll heal it."

He raised a brow at that, pressing his arm tighter into his torso. "Absolutely not," he answered. It would be too much of a taunt, to be enveloped in magic, to have it within his skin and his blood and his bones but to not have it be his. Never mind having to be healed by Potter, it was nothing compared to being filled with Potter's magic when his was noticeably absent.

"Fine," he dismissed. "I'm curious to see what happens if you die in Hell, anyway."

He sneered at that, knowing he would not die. There was only so deep into the earth one could go, and he had already burrowed as far as possible. He would just suffer, which was hardly any more appealing. There were horcruxes to be found, a purpose to be learned from them.

Death to cheat.

With a resigned sigh, he held his arm out, biting down onto the inside of his cheeks until his mouth was filled with blood as well. He blinked owlishly at him in surprise, unprepared for him to accept his offer, but knelt forward regardless, hands wrapping around the arm as he frowned in disgust, wrinkles forming around his nose and mouth. The feeling of fingers coiling around him was enough to jolt Tom, and he fought to not pull his hand to his side at the remembrance of the hands within the void.

But these hands were warm and gentle, and heat encompassed him. The searing pain, like acid in his veins, diminished until it was just a sting, and he watched as the blood smeared along the pale skin of his forearm began to draw back, retreating into the wound.

When Potter let go, his arm was whole, a little pink, with a small, white scar where once there had been a gaping hole of torn and stained skin.

"I'm getting pretty good at using magic here," Potter said, lips twitching into a sheepish grin as if he was unsure of how to act around him. He wasn't Lord Voldemort, hardly even Tom Riddle anymore. Tom Riddle was at least a wizard.

"Can't be that good. You left a scar," he said as he brought his attention to the buttons of his oxford, peeling the sticky and crimson shirt from him.

Potter shrugged. "Fair's fair."

He flicked his eyes up to him in a glare.

"You're not funny."

If there had been a ghost of a smile on his face, it was gone. "I wasn't trying to be." He watched as Tom removed the shirt, tossing it aside and looking at the blood that soaked through the fabric and now smeared over his torso. He waved his hand through the air, conjuring up a wet towel and proffering it to him. Tom's lip twitched in irritation as he reached out, snatching it hastily from his grasp.

As Tom began to clean himself off, Harry sat upon the bed, mouth curling into a small grin as he scoffed. "Make yourself comfortable," he muttered below his breath.

Potter ignored him. "Anyway, before I had to clean up after what I can only assume was the tantrum of the century-" his grin became wider at the flash of indignation- "I was saying that I was thinking about it. The crying. And I remembered where I heard it from before. It's from the first time I died."

Tom stilled, fingers clutching the terrycloth fabric as nails dug into it. He bit his lip, grimacing as rage thrummed through him, heating his cells and alighting his nerves. The first time. The bloody Gryffindor- a mediocre at best wizard- had died not once, but twice (dragging him down with him the second time around, thank you very much!). And all because of his own hubris, because he trusted someone else to do something for him and had been betrayed.

He hoped Narcissa was rotting away in Azkaban, if not her own Hell.

"There was..." Potter paused, shoulders sagging as he chewed his lip, thinking of how to best say it. "Well, there was...sort of like a baby but...it...er..."

"Get to it, before I die again, this time of old age!" Tom barked in impatience, making the other boy jump.

Had he just made a joke about his own death? He really was sinking into madness.

"Well, it was you. Or, your soul. Dumbledore said that because of your horcruxes, you're soul would never be whole again. It couldn't rest," he explained, running a hand through his hair, untidying it even more than it already was. A true feat, if Tom said so himself. "The...thing. Piece of soul? I'm not sure what it was exactly, but it kept crying. And I think maybe that's what I'm hearing. And why you're...here."

Tom rose a brow, hissing through his teeth as he struggled to control his anger, the desire mounting to reach out and wrap his hands around his neck and press in until he sputtered and grasped for air, lips turning blue. "Or, perhaps, I'm here because I'm being punished. This is Hell, isn't it? Isn't this where you wanted me? Where I would never lay a hand on anyone again? Where I would suffer for all eternity?" He gestured broadly, extending his arms out with his palms facing the ceiling. "Here it is. A little less fire and brimstone than expected, but everything else seems to be in order."

He opened his mouth, closing it before opening it once more to speak. "Maybe you are in Hell, and maybe you're meant to be here. I don't pretend to know how this works- I'm not exactly the one who was obsessed with death," he began, leveling a pointed look at him. "But what I do know is that any chance of rest is impossible when you've gone and hacked your soul to bits."

"So is any chance of escaping," he reasoned.

Potter squinted at this, his lips skewed in thought as he tried to understand what he said. But then realization dawned on him, and his eyes widened in disbelief. "Escape? Tom, you can't seriously think you still have a chance of coming back from the dead?" he asked, his tone high. When Tom said nothing, he sighed, pressing a palm against the center of his eyes and shifting the glasses he wore.

"Aren't you tired of fighting it? Of constantly trying to undermine...I don't know...Just trying to play God? Don't you just want to find peace?"

"Peace? You don't want me to find peace. You want me to suffer, everyone does. What do you think is fair, Potter? A hundred years of torment for every mudblood I killed? That's what you want, isn't it?" he asked, tossing the stained towel aside and folding arms over his clean chest.

Potter shook his head. "No, I don't want that. I want you to have what I've got," he said, and Tom actually laughed, the sound cruel and absent of any joy. He was funny, he really was. It was simply impossible to believe that Potter- more than anyone- would spare him some sympathy.

"What you've got? And what exactly is that?"

 _'Magic,'_ Tom thought, hungrily.

Potter shrugged. "Your mum. Family. A home."

The laughter died in his throat, and he let a cruel smile contort onto his lips. He never had a home, he never needed one. He did perfectly well without any of those things- the most feared wizard to have lived was certainly not a title to be taken lightly, even with the matter of 'lived' being in past tense.

"I had a mum. A family too. I killed them," he said simply, his smile growing as Potter squirmed uncomfortably at the reminder. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "I killed yours, too, remember? Say hi to them for me."

The bed creaked as he rose from it, hands balling into fists at his side. "I was just trying to help. Sorry for infringing on your God complex," he spat, storming to the door.

"Sorry for not indulging in your savior complex," he spat back, turning to meet the icy glare tossed over his shoulder. He opened the door, smirking wide and uncharacteristically wry as he used his foot to prop it open wide. There was nothing beyond it, just the white nothingness.

"Enjoy eternity, Riddle," he said.

The door slammed between them.

-xXx-

 **Author's Note:** Follow me on tumblr at reneehartblog for sneak peeks into stories, chapters, answers to questions, or to submit any prompts.

Thanks for reading!


	3. Two

**2.**

Tom couldn't breathe- something heavy sat upon his chest, digging and compressing into his neck. He awoke with a startled, desperate gasp, hands raising to his neck. Fingertips brushed over the cold, metal chain of Slytherin's locket that dug into the skin. It was twisted so as to create a knot that kept it tight and short enough that it wound into his flesh, leaving an imprint from the thick and rather gaudy interlocking chain. His hands stilled when he saw what was atop him, causing his eyes to widen as pupils dilated.

A naked young woman was sitting on his chest, knees digging into the tender flesh below his rib cage. One hand was propping her up, her palm flat and fingers grazing the dip of his collarbone. The other was holding onto the pendant, gripping it tightly. Her elbow bent out behind her as she pulled the necklace further away from him, causing the noose to dig deeper into him and he choked out an incoherent sound.

Her skin was sallow, an unhealthy pallor that was present even before her death, gaunt and haggard despite her young age. Purple shadows fell beneath her sunken eyes, thin lips pinched in concentration as she continued to strangle him. Crimson freckles of dried blood dotted her face, smeared and coated her chin from where she coughed so heavily in illness.

"Stop-" he managed to wheeze, trying frantically to get a hold of the locket and loosen it as he tossed beneath her, twisting his torso to throw her off. But she was heavier than she appeared, smothering him despite looking just a bit too thin, her bones a bit too prominent.

She said nothing, only continued to gaze at him with unseeing gray eyes, looking through him.

His vision blurred, pinpricks of light filtering through as his blood thrummed in his head, like a wave of an ocean crashing onto him. He kicked out from under her, the heels of his feet digging so fiercely into the mattress that it pulled the sheet loose from the corners, entangling them in his thrashing limbs. Releasing the chain, he placed his hands on her slim shoulders and sat up as he gave her a great shove.

She was thrown from him, tossed into the side of the wardrobe at the foot of the bed. It shook, trembled as she catapulted into it, sliding into the small space between it and the metal frame, bent so that her knees met her chest and her feet twitched in the air.

The chain had loosened, snapping from its clasp to remained in her clenched hands, and he shuffled upright on the mattress until he was standing on the pillow, rubbing his sore and aching neck. Each breath was like fire filling his lungs, acrid smoke billowing around him and scorching the inside of his nostrils. His chest rose rapidly, unevenly as he greedily gulped in oxygen, wonderful and delightful oxygen that made the clouds filling his head dissipate, allowed his eyesight to focus.

He remained staring even as he took deep, decadent breaths, watching as her feet slowly disappeared from where they flailed as she slipped them onto the floor. Her eyes met his, though not really- they seemed to look beyond him, blankly staring at the wall behind his head. They were dead and glassy; coated in a film that made them look milky, the white of her eyes and gray irises blending together in the dullness.

"Who are you?" he asked, something familiar about the sharp contours in her face, her large but chapped and bloodied lips. Her hair was tucked behind somewhat large ears, long and a deep ebony color that made the deathly sheen of her skin all the more ghastly.

She considered him for a moment, dragging her teeth- a small gap between the front two- over her lips and peeling at the dead skin. As if in answer to his question, she rose her hand up, the metal chain of the locket wound in her thin fingers, the large pendant swaying with her movement.

He swallowed thickly, lips pursing as he pressed himself flat against the wall. He stayed there, propped against it as he sunk further into the mattress, unable to take his eyes away from the dead girl before him.

The locket continued to swing in her grasp, long after she had stilled.

-xXx-

The girl did not move from where she was wedged, her arm hung above her head so that the locket swayed in a nonexistent breeze. Though she did twist her head around, following Tom as he moved around the room with her vacant eyes. He regarded her warily, pinching his lips. "Get out," he had ordered. When she remained, legs stretched before her and under his bed, he growled, his voice booming as he barked, _"GET OUT!"_ She was unfazed by the malice in his words, the murder in his eyes.

She was not like Potter had been.

She was not a visitor.

Not a passerby, wandering through.

She was a memory of a ghost.

And she was haunting him.

-xXx-

Tom pulled his arm back, bringing it down like a hammer as he swung the metal rod- ripped from his headboard- down onto the hinges of the door. The room was filled with a metallic clang, and the vibrations went through his hand, tingling up his arm from the collision. He frowned at the protruding hinge, not even tarnished in the slightest and then looked to the pole, a large dent caving it in. With a sigh, he sat back, his feet tucked below him and pinched the bridge of his nose.

There had to be a way out.

No door was impenetrable.

He took a deep, steadying breath, trying to collect his thoughts as he ran through a mental list of all the items in the small room (prison cell, more appropriately). One of them might be useful, if he could repurpose it, find a way to break free.

His thoughts were disrupted by the sound of papers shuffling, a book being flipped open. Feet scuffled along the floor, a sniffle, and finally a quill scratching on parchment, the sharpened tip dragging ink in loops and spikes. He swiveled around on his feet, raising the pole above his head as a makeshift weapon.

Sitting at the desk- her back to him- was a girl. A different, younger girl than the one between his bed and wardrobe, dark brown hair pulled into pigtails that hung at uneven heights, the part of her hair zigzagging down to reveal a gray scalp beneath. She was hunched over the table, her right shoulder quivering as the plume of a feather twirled in front of her.

He said nothing, fingers tightening around the rod as his eyes flitted over to the other one- the other ghost. She still hadn't moved, her chin resting on her shoulder as she strained to look at him from the awkward angle, the locket throwing shadows over her face as it swung before her.

Looking back to the new girl- ghost?- he propelled himself up from the floor and jumped forward, dragging the rod through the air with such speed it made a hissing sound. It was aimed at the center of her head- the divide of her hair acting as a target- and it came down heavily.

It was as if he had swung at a brick wall; electricity ran from the pole and into his hand, shooting up until his shoulder was trembling from the reverberation. He staggered, stumbling from the pain as his grip slackened and the pole fell to the floor. His wrist throbbed in agony, having snapped back with the sound of splintering bone when the rod bounced off the very terribly solid figment.

The quill was lifted from the pages of his diary as she twisted around to look at him through wide, wire-rimmed spectacles, sniffling in derision at him. Myrtle Warren tutted softly, tongue clucking behind teeth, before she turned back around and continued writing.

Writing what exactly, he did not know. He grasped his wrist, breathing through gritted teeth and snarled lips. "Please leave," he asked, and he tried to sound polite, he really did. But he was shaking with rage, with confusion and rage at his confusion. It was a punishment of some sort, but it did not make sense and if there was a lesson to be deigned, it was swathed so tightly within the enigma it was indiscernible. He was impossibly tired, unable to sleep with the cataract eyes watching him unblinking, and the inside of his mouth and throat was parched and constricted in thirst. He did not need to eat, yet he desired to do so and his stomach coiled around itself in clenching pain at being denied.

She ignored him, and he let out a roar of fury. Using his uninjured hand, he gripped the back of her head and slammed it down, dropping the full weight of his body against her own. Her neck snapped as she whipped down, and her head made a satisfying _thwack_ as it clashed with the desk. He held her in place, hair catching under his nails, and ground her face further in, slowly, with great care, pages crinkling beneath her.

Her hand was limp, the quill slipping from between her thumb and forefinger, and after a moment, he released his hold, stepping back. Just as he had exhaled in relief, peace washing over him for the first time since he had arrived in this Hell, she picked herself back up, throwing him a scowl over her shoulder. Ink was smeared on her face and her glasses were crooked, but there wasn't even so much as pink splotch from where she had hit the desk.

He tried to conceal his surprise, his mild terror, as he took an involuntary step back.

She turned away from him, and the sound of quill on parchment filled the room once more.

-xXx-

He threw himself against the door, yelling audibly in pain even as he did it again, bouncing back as it refused to cave in. His back was bruised, a hideous yellow color tinging the edges of deep blue and purple welts that followed the curve of his shoulder blade, fist sized circles dotted down his spine. Everything groaned in protest, in anguish, but he didn't care, he had to get out.

He rested along the door for a second, closing his eyes against the pain so tightly that fireworks erupted before him. When he opened them, it was to the same terrible sight before him.

Gray eyes, swaying locket.

Feather quill swishing over the open diary, feet shuffling anxiously under the desk.

And the newest shadow to perch within his Hell-

An elderly man sitting below the window, dressed in dirty rags as fingers lovingly traced over the intricate details of the diadem.

Tom pulled back, throwing himself against the door once more.

It would only be a matter of time before Tom Riddle Senior arrived, and he didn't intend to stick around for the family reunion.

-xXx-

Tom clasped hands over his ears, grimacing as Myrtle continued to shriek and scream loudly. It was so loud, so high-pitched that it made his skull tremble, and he could hardly even hear it over the sound of static that it created. As if his mind was stuck on the nonexistent plane between two radio stations, like he sat under a powerful waterfall that crashed into him. "SHUT UP!" he yelled back, but he couldn't even hear himself, the world muffled to the cacophony within his head.

If he had known that this was what would have happened when he tossed her from the chair- like throwing a boulder to the side, so great and sturdy was her presence- and slammed it down on the ground, breaking off the legs, he would have left it. He would have found something else to use, the desk itself, kicked in the wardrobe until he had a suitable enough piece of wood. But it was too late, and nothing he did would settle her down and even his teeth quivered in his mouth from the sheer force of her screams, the walls pulsing with the undulation.

She was still sitting on the ground, a rumpled mess of wrinkled Hogwarts robes and a loosened Ravenclaw tie. Her mouth was opened so wide he thought the jaw might have become unhinged, and her pink tongue moved back and forth in the cavern of her mouth. Fingernails dug into the soft leather flesh of the diary as she twisted it in her lap with ink smeared hands.

This was too much. He couldn't stand this- not for eternity.

He needed to get out.

-xXx-

He sat on top her, knees pinning down her shoulders, his hands wrapped around her thin neck, pressing down with all of his might, all of his weight. Her pale skin was turning a tinge of blue, lips a deep burgundy, like they were stained in wine, and a trickle of blood slid from her nostril and and down the curve of her cheek. And yet, she still screamed. She did not fight against him, did not buck or pry at his fingers. She was immune to pain, immune to his wrath and his rage and the room shook and wavered with every peel from her throat, every round of screeches that made him wish- _pray-_ for deafness.

Her skin was ice cold, like digging his hands deep into a hallowed grave where worms fed and engorged themselves on disease, famine, violence. On death. He had never known a cold such as this, a cold that permeated his flesh and turned his blood into ice, his bones into brittle glass sculptures.

But his blood was not frozen, and he knew this because something warm and thick and viscus coated the shell of his ears, a trail slipping down his neck and into the dip of his collarbone. He was sure that if she ever did stop her wails, he would continue to hear them anyway. They were engraved in his brain, coming from within him and infecting every neuron and cell and all the parts of his cell.

She wasn't a ghost, or a shadow or even a figment.

She was a demon.

-xXx-

He shook, unsteady. The screaming was making him dizzy, but he focused as much as he could in the clamor, raising the thickest piece of wood he had from the chair above his head- he should have never destroyed the bloody chair, never threw the bloody and wretched thing to the floor. He pierced the wall with it, moving forward as if throwing a spear.

It gave in easily enough- a plume of dust filled the air, and he coughed and choked on it, bits of plaster falling to his feet and coating the blanket in a thin layer of gray flakes. He wiggled the bit of chair around, widening the hole so that it was roughly nine inches in diameter and he could see the rotting wood within the walls, coated in mold and parasites.

Everything was rotten, everything was dead and decomposing.

He pulled back, readied to launch forward again when he stilled, nose crinkling in disgust as he began to sputter. A terribly pungent aroma seemed to waft from the hole, more powerful than the mildew and the blood that he had gotten used to. He clasped a hand over his mouth and nose, but it wasn't enough, the acrid smell of death and decaying flesh slipped between his fingers, sliding down his throat like a fist that cut off all oxygen. His stomach quelled, clenched violently and he dry heaved, for a moment thankful he had been denied food.

He jumped from the bed, making his way to the wardrobe and pulling out the discarded oxford from long ago. The blood that had dried into it made it stiff and starched, and it crunched beneath his grasp as he bunched it in his hand. Finding a patch that was somewhat clean, he held it to his face before approaching the hole once more, using his free hand to pull away more of the plaster until it was large enough for him to peer in.

Within the dark crevices, nestled within a notch of black and wilted wood, was the coiled body of a large snake. The emerald scales were dull, tinged with the hue of death and rot. Flies flitted around the carcass, greedily consuming what remained like the scavengers raiding a tomb.

"Nagini," he hissed from behind his mask, a knot of twine winding in his chest, tightening within his rib cage uncomfortably. It was perhaps the closest to heartbreak he was capable of, and even then a poor facsimile of it. A mockery, parody of love and affection.

He stared at the spear-like shape of her head, at the forked tongue that lopped out from her mouth between her long fangs. If she weren't so repulsive, he might have reached in, tenderly caressed it even as some sign of mourning.

After what seemed like an appropriate amount of time, he turned away and reached into the pocket of his slacks, pulling out the hideous ring. He ran his fingers over it, the metal cold- like everything in this Hell, where warmth was all but a distant memory, the heat from his own veins the only taunting comfort- before bringing his hand up to the opening and dropping it within the wall. If it made a sound, he couldn't hear it over Myrtle's continued screams, and he peered inside once more to ensure it hadn't disappeared- hoping behind any sort of logical hope that hiding it away would prevent the demon caricature of Tom Riddle Senior from visiting him as the others had.

But instead of seeing nothing except moldy, damp wooden joists and planks, his dark eyes met hazel, greens and blues and browns broken into fragments around a black hole of a pupil. He pulled back, dropping the bunched up oxford in his surprise and breathing in decay until it filled his lungs. He swallowed, clenching his jaw as he looked back, dread filling the pit of stomach.

Bertha Jorkins was wedged between the plaster and wood, with no room to move about. Wispy, blonde hair hung in front of her face, like golden straw, and her eyes were bloodshot, rimmed in red. Just as vacant as the others, unseeing and glossy and dazed. Her face was covered in fevered splotches, lips bitten until they were a bright, swollen red. They parted, and she inhaled sharply, the sound of air whistling through in a tight, winded wheeze. Her hands, settled on the wall on either side of her face, began drumming along the inside of the partition, nails scraping along the plaster.

Long, grating scratches- not quite desperate, not quite frantic.

He pushed himself away from the wall, settling down on the bed and wrapping his arms around his head, a poor attempt to muffle the wails and the clawing and wheezing.

-xXx-

Tom knelt in front of the door, trying to reign in his anger, the pure and electrifying rage at having no control, of having been stripped away of everything he had ever once been proud of. His magic, his power, his ability to command everyone around him to do as he said, to quiver with just a look. He ruled over an army, inspired such fear in the world that his name would fall silent on their lips, hallowed and unspoken at the very thought of his wand. His very name- his very identity- was a gospel, a scripture to some, and he the god to be worshiped. And to others, it was torment. It was anguish and cries and curses.

It had been a wonderful life, filled with power and knowledge and the consumption of it, tearing into the meat and bones of forgotten texts and ancient teachings like it was all he needed to live. It had been filled with gaining and conquering, and even Death himself could not stand in his way.

Until he did.

And then, how the mighty had fallen.

And now he was crouched, like one of his pathetic followers vying for his favor, and he was struggling to retain his calm, closing his eyes as he breathed through his nose. He had almost forgotten how to be Tom Riddle, how to be polite and charming and oh so sweet, oh so innocent and wonderful and full of promise. He had not needed the facade for so long; he did not need to charm others, convince them that he could be trusted. All Lord Voldemort had needed was fear, and he had instilled it in many. His reputation preceded him, and what he wanted, he often got. Whether through sheer force, or with whispered lies and empty promises that seduced others to give in.

But after a moment, he found it within himself, doing his best to sound innocent and contrite and desperate, eyes wide. "Please," he began, hoping that someone was listening. Death, demon or angel- he didn't care. "Please, I'm sorry. Please...just let me out."

He waited, one ear pressed flat against the door, straining to hear over the screaming that had almost become dissonant white noise, the wheezing through shaking rib bones, nails digging into plaster. Over the sound of a fist pounding on the wall as Tom Riddle Senior punched against it, to where the ring had been dropped into the depths.

No one came, no one heard him. Or at least they did not take pity on him.

Letting out a ferocious roar, he punched the door. It shook somewhat in its frame, and his knuckles split against it, but it did not give in. It never would. He was trapped. Trapped in eternal damnation with vengeful ghosts and demons who would not cease until he had lost his sanity as well, until he could not hear his own thoughts over the unending discord. Until he found himself recalling the void and it's uncertainty and insignificance with fondness.

He turned around, pressing his back against the door and sliding down, clamping her hands over his ears as he gazed into the crowded room. At Myrtle thrashing beside the desk, mouth wide and gaping and lips purple as she hardly even stopped to breathe. The peasant squeezed between the desk and the bed, just below the window, as he caressed the sapphire that sat at the center of the diadem. His father standing on the mattress which dipped with his weight as he pounded at the wall with the side of his clenched hands, a rhythm that left blood smeared on the wall that would not give in despite how rotten and decayed it was. Nails raking from within, the acrid smell of death seeping in through the hole which he had shoved his blankets and sheets into, in the hope of smothering it some.

His eyes finally settled on the ones which never left him, the ones that followed him around the room as if he were a beacon, gray and foggy. The locket still swung before her, like the pendulum of a Grandfather clock, keeping time into eternity. Counting down to the second of his torment.

He should have never made them. For the first time in his life- or afterlife, rather- he regretted ever making the horcruxes, having severed his soul until it could not be severed any further. If he had known that this would be the result, that they would fail anyway and he would spend forever with the ghosts attached to them, he would have never made them. He would have done something, anything else!

It was madness, and he just wanted it to stop.

-xXx-

"He's beautiful," Harry said, even though he knew no one would hear him. He was invisible to the room and all its occupants, unseen even as he hovered only inches away from Hermione, propping himself up on the head of her bed at St. Mungo's. Her hair was held back, but only just so, with frizzy and wild curls breaking free from the hair band, clinging to her sweat slick skin. She was flushed, with tired eyes, but she had never looked happier, the small baby pressed against her breast.

Ron sat beside her on the bed, his arm wrapped around her as he looked at his son with pride, a wide, lopsided grin in place. He cooed, running a large hand over the soft head of brown curls.

Molly Weasley fluttered around the room, a ball of anxious energy, refolding blankets and impossibly small clothes, changing the water of vases with fresh bouquets in them. She was chattering, doling out motherly advice. "Hermione, dear, you should get some rest! I know the nurses are going to want to give you all the potions in the world, but I swear, nothing will help you pepper up better than some orange juice. I drank nothing but that for the first few days after every one of you kids!" she said, turning to look at them and smiling widely at her grandson once more. "And don't worry about not having a name just. Why, it took me three day before finally settling Charlie."

Arthur, from where he sat at the seat beside the bed, grinned at a memory. "Oh yes, for a while there I was worried he might really have just been named 'The Baby'."

"Actually," Hermione started, sounding winded and exhausted as she finally looked up from the wriggling infant. "We've got a name. We've known since we found out we were expecting, but wanted to keep it a surprise."

The smile fell from Molly's face, looking somewhat hurt at having not heard sooner. "Oh?" she asked. "And what is that?"

"Mum, Dad," Ron started, pausing a bit as he looked at his wife and child, his wide grin becoming a small, somewhat sad smile. "I'd like to introduce you to Harry."

Something like a whimper left Molly's throat, but any hurt that had lingered from being kept in the dark was gone in an instant, and her lips rose upward. "Harry. How wonderful," she said, bringing a hand up to her eye and rubbing it along the puffy skin, sniffling.

Harry felt warmth blossom in his chest, wanting desperately more than he had ever had since his death to be able to speak. To be heard. Just this one moment, just one more embrace. Seven long years had dragged forward since his death, and no matter how often Lily assured him it would become easier, it never did. He missed them all so terribly, and to be so close to them without being truly there was pure torture.

"I guess Harry's a nice name, but Fred has a certain ring to it," a familiar voice said beside him, and he looked up to see Fred Weasley mirroring his position, looking down at his nephew.

"You know George already named his son Fred. Let me have this one, you prat," he joked, laughing as he tried to push away the lonely ache in his chest. As if something rather prominent was missing.

Fred said something, huffing indignantly, but Harry had not heard him, a familiar but forgotten voice stirring abruptly from within. _'Please.'_

He startled, standing straighter as he looked around the room. But no one new had entered, Hermione had relinquished little Harry from her hold so Molly could finally hold her grandson, and Fred looked at him with amused eyes. He pursed his lips, straining his ears. He was certain he had heard someone speak. Hadn't he?

Just as he was about to settle back, his mouth opening to say something to Fred, the voice returned. _'Please, I'm sorry. Please...just let me out.'_

He was certain now of who the voice belonged to- the deep, silky purr of Tom Riddle.

He had put the wizard at rest in his thoughts, tucking him away. It had taken some time, but eventually he had gotten quite good at ignoring the icy sound of an infant's cries. There were some moments were the sound became overwhelming, and he clamped hands over his ears to no avail, for it came from within. But for the most part, it had receded to the background, and he thought of the Slytherin no more.

Yet, Tom had never spoken to him before. He furrowed his brow in confusion. Had he been speaking to him, or had his voice simply carried over, finding its way to Harry despite either of their better want? And more importantly, why?

"Harry?" Fred asked, head cocked curiously to the side. But Harry ignored him, skewing his lips in thought. He had every intention of abandoning Tom Riddle for all eternity to the room of his muggle childhood, but their was something niggling at the back of his head, picking at his skull. Surely, there had to have been a reason for it.

Before he could consider it further, a train whistled from the corridor outside of the hospital room, and he peered out the door to see the Hogwarts Express, sitting undeterred by the mediwizards and mediwitches that milled about. He felt a laugh bubble in his throat, lips quirking into a grin as he imagined a nurse looking up and scowling. _'Excuse me, but trains aren't allowed inside the hospital,'_ he thought the nurse might say.

He looked over his shoulder, glancing longingly at his namesake and the family he had left behind. But there was a reason for the train materializing before him- even if he didn't quite understand it himself. The afterlife worked cryptically, presenting you with what you want or needed even when you yourself didn't quite know at the time.

"I'll see you later, Fred," he said, waving a hand in goodbye as he turned from the room. If Fred had asked him where he was headed to, he did not hear it, as he boarded the train, doors clanging shut behind him.

-xXx-

 **Author's Note:** A shorter chapter, otherwise it would have been entirely too long with no place to cut it that wouldn't be awkward. I hope you all enjoyed, and please review!


	4. Three

**Author's Note:** So, the violence gets...fairly graphic in this chapter, towards the end. This is the one instance of it, but it is very gross and I just wanted to give a proper warning. If anyone thinks I should raise the rating, just let me know. Enjoy.

 **3.**

The room fell silent, and Tom lifted his head up from his hands, brows knitted in confusion. The screaming and the pounding and the wheezing had all been replaced by a high pitched ringing that engulfed him. His head felt full, like his skull had been stuffed with cotton and swathed in a blanket. Had he finally gone deaf?

His eyes fell on Myrtle, who was sitting up and staring beyond him, her wine colored lips clamped shut, veins visible beneath her translucent skin. Her eyes were focused on something just above him, an intensity to them that was typically absent. He followed her line of sight, just as the door shoved into his back, the brass knob wiggling with the movement.

He thought he heard someone speak, but the words were too distant, too muffled. He shuffled away from the door, pulling himself up along the wall as Harry Potter tentatively stepped into the room.

He looked at Tom, eyes widening from behind the wire-rimmed glasses as they flicked over his bruised chest, his skin a canvas to his own abuse, painted with ugly blues and purples and a sickly yellow. He opened his mouth, silent words on deaf ears, as if he were shouting from too great a distance, over the thunder of a storm.

What was he doing here? Had he gotten bored in heaven- Poor Savior Potter, was he having a bit of an identity crisis with no one to fight? No one to save? He had been certain that their previous interaction would be the last one ever between them- it felt as if it had been forever ago, several lifetimes stretched apart in the space between then and now. He wanted nothing to do with Dumbledore's Golden Boy; no figment Hell could create would be so torturous.

Unless, he was a figment himself. The uncertainty of it, the way he was beginning to question the very things before him, was enough to make him swallow thickly, the sound echoing in his mind.

Tom grimaced, settling a hand over an ear and pressing into it, the pressure creating a slight _pop!_ But it did no use, and Harry cocked his head at him, nose crinkling. Understanding seem to flood the younger wizard, he took a step forward, slowly raising a hand, the palm forward as if to show he had no ill intent.

He met the proffered hand with narrowed, suspicious eyes, but said nothing as Harry moved closer, letting his hand come to rest on the side of Tom's head, cupping his ear. It was wonderfully warm, and he knew for certain then that Harry had to be real. No warmth- no comfort- would be given to him in Hell, not even in the form of one of its cruel puppets. Something enveloped him- the familiar tingle of magic as it prickled the air around him, static making his hair stand on end.

The ringing within the caverns of his skull diminished, the fullness in his head receding with it. The hand pulled away from him, and he would never admit to how his chest seared with the absence, the air around him feeling even colder than before, stinging his cheek.

"Can you hear now?" Harry asked.

Slowly, Tom nodded, pursing his lips. What was he here for? And why had the ghosts of his past decided to become quiet with his presence? Turning away from the other boy, he scanned around the small room.

The apparitions were there, in the places they had settled into without hesitation. But they were stilled, frozen in time. Even the locket ceased its rhythmic movements, the pendant eerily unmoving. His father stood on the sunken mattress, black shoes barely visible as they disappeared into it, and his fist was raised at nearly eye level, poised to smack against the wall but never moving those final inches.

Why? Why was there suddenly some semblance of calm? A respite from the torment?

"Tom?"

He turned back to his visitor, blinking in thinly veiled surprise. He licked his lips, parting them as he said, "You...don't see them, do you?" He hated to ask it. It sounded so pathetic, so deranged. So helpless. But he needed to know- he needed to have some understanding of the mechanics of this place. Everything had rules to abide by, and he needed to know what rules hindered and bound him before he could find a way around them.

Harry frowned, looking around the small space before saying, "Er...them?"

He hadn't been surprised. They were his demons, and his alone.

Tom flourished a hand in the air, gesturing towards the desk; the slim, leather bound diary atop the plain surface. "You've met Myrtle, I'm sure. But allow me to introduce you to my father," he started, cutting his hand between them to gesture to where Tom Riddle Senior stood, his back to them. "Bertha Jorkins is in the wall, but that information is a bit superfluous, seeing as how you can't see her anyway."

The confusion- and mild concern, if Tom were being honest- seemed to shift within Harry's eyes, sharpening with his words. "And Hepzibah Smith?" he asked, quirking a brow so that it disappeared in the strands of ebony hair hanging over his forehead.

Tom shrugged. "I haven't found her yet. And hopefully never will. They're all a nuisance," he said, causing Harry to scoff, a look of indignation on his face.

"I'm sure they'd all consider you to be a tad bit more than a nuisance," he snapped wryly, sounding incredulous, as if surprised by the nonchalant manner in which Tom regarded the ghosts of those he killed.

Tom did not respond, folding his arms over his bare and mottled chest as he let his back rest against the wall before sliding down to the floor. Harry looked uncomfortable, crossing the room to sit upon the bed before coming to a halt, frowning at the mysterious dip in the mattress. He considered it for only a moment before turning around, sitting on the floor himself, resting against the metal frame opposite Tom.

"Do you want me to heal you?" Harry asked after an awkward stretch of silence.

Tom's gaze hardened. "No." He wasn't so certain if he'd be able to resist leaning into the heat of skin against his own frigid flesh, welcoming it, wanting it to fill him and consume him. He had already suffered enough humiliation at the hands of the spirits, he certainly did not need himself to be caught basking under Potter's touch.

Harry seemed nonplussed by the curt response, shrugging his shoulders as if ambivalent.

"What are you doing here, exactly? Tired of heaven already?" Tom sneered, fingers curling into his bicep. Though, if he were being honest, there was something not unlike relief unfurling within him, like a giant weight had been lifted from his shoulders and he could stretch his spine, bones cracking. Perhaps it was because the others had become- mercifully- silent with his intrusion, or perhaps it was because there was something calming about having a person- a real, flesh and blood or as close to it when you were dead – person standing before you. Someone who could interact with you, who looked at you, met your gaze instead of staring beyond with cataracts and filmy eyes, listless stares. Or perhaps it was because he could speak and have words- coherent words strung together into a sentence- spoken back towards him.

He had never considered himself a person who succumbed to loneliness, who needed to have friends or family to surround him. And yet, the loneliness of hell, wrapped within a crude illusion of company, bore down on him in a way he had never experienced.

Harry tore his eyes away from Tom, becoming suddenly fascinated by his cuticles. "Well...I...I think I heard you. Begging to be freed...it was you, right?"

Tom clenched his jaw. "I wasn't begging. And I wasn't talking to you."

His face scrunched in confusion. "Than who were you talking to?"

He said nothing in reply, his lips pursed and fingertips thrumming on the cold skin of his upper arm. But the Gryffindor was more prudent than he had given him credit for, as he scoffed after a moment of Tom's silence, eyebrows raising high. "You were trying to trick Death into letting you out, weren't you?" He paused, as if giving Tom the opportunity to deny or confirm the accusations. But his lips remained clamped tightly shut, and Harry sighed, adding, "He's a bit more shrewd than Slughorn, you know. You can't exactly sweet talk your way out of this one."

"A troll is more shrewd than Slughorn."

Harry blinked owlishly at him, as if surprised by the quip. But then his lips twitched into a small smile, a short burst of laughter just barely quieted as it died somewhere in the back of his throat. "For once, we agree."

Tom closed his eyes, resting his head back against the wall. It was the closest he had felt to peace, though by a large margin it was anything but peaceful. He was still frozen, a chill settled into his bones that made them stiff and ache, his skin practically numb. And the thirst that made his throat burn, brittle with want and the hunger that made his stomach coil had yet to abate.

But it was quiet, the absence of sound almost more disruptive at this point. He could hear blood thrumming in his head, his breath as his lungs expanded and deflated. And the air! The smell of the rotting corpse within the walls had entirely dissipated, and the air was crisp and clean and burned his nostrils with the cold, made his chest feel constricted. It was all so uncomfortable, but in a wonderful way.

His eyes continued to ache, that sleep that had evaded him for the small portion of eternity seeming closer than it ever had. His muscles melted against the wall he was propped against, limp and heavy, and he realized that Harry didn't technically answer his question. But he couldn't find the strength to pick himself back up and demand an answer, he was simply too exhausted from keeping himself awake for fear of hands that might wrap around his neck, of wheezing lungs and pounding fists. He thought about how he hoped Potter didn't plan to leave for some time, wanting to prolong the quiet and the thin semblance of sanity that followed with the younger wizard's presence. He might have examined the strange thoughts further- did he actually welcome the visitor?- but he fell asleep before he could.

-xXx-

He awoke to his shoulder being gently prodded, blearily blinking his eyes to remove the last few traces of slumber from them. Potter was standing before him, bent at the waist so that he was eye level with Tom. He wasn't unsure of how long he had slept for- it was so soundless and dreamless that for a moment he wondered if he had actually slept or if he had fallen unconscious- but it was long enough that the frozen touch of Death seemed to wrap its fingers around Harry.

His skin was pale, except for a blossom of pink on the apples of his cheeks and on the tip of his slim nose. His lips were a deep shade of red, a blue tinge to them that made them appear violet. They were parted, a cloud forming between them with each exhalation, his breath freezing into crystals that hung in the air. He had conjured a cloak for himself, thick wool wrapped quite snug around his broad shoulders, but it seemed to do little to keep out the biting chill surrounding them, as he shivered beneath the layers.

"S-sorry to wake y-you, but I think I might know w-why your here," he said, his words chattering over trembling teeth. Tom twisted his head to the side, brows knitting. Although the cold had settled within him, becoming him, he supposed that it would have more devastating effects on someone not meant for this world. Potter was warmth and light and there was no place for that here.

"Perhaps you have forgotten, but I surely have not," he started, a cutting edge to his words, speaking as if he was talking to particular petulant and ignorant child. "This is Hell, and though I was not a very pious man in life, it is my understanding that Hell is reserved for sinners."

Potter shook his head, the motion made even more erratic by the trembles that shook him, glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose. Raising a hand to shove them back into its proper place, he said, "That can't be true. Everyone's a sinner, really, when you think of it. And besides, I've seen people in...well, I suppose it's Heaven. But I've seen people there who others might argue as being more suited for Hell. So why are they there, but you're here?"

He could argue, he knew, that perhaps he had been different. That Death and the Gods themselves carved out a special place for him, for Lord Voldemort. But he said nothing, stretching his long legs out before him as they ached in protest after having sat cross-legged for so long.

Potter stepped aside, hesitating before settling down on the floor to the right of Tom. He sat less than a foot away from Myrtle, the girl curled under the desk with her knees pressed into her chest, arms locked around them.

"I w-was thinking of the story of the T-three Brothers and the Deathly Hallows," Harry chattered, and Tom looked to him, tearing his eyes away from the glossy ones just beyond. Harry wrapped the cloak tighter around him, a fist bunching it around his neck. "Death was angry that he had been cheated out of three souls, so when he rewarded the brothers, it was with the intent of punishing them for trying to evade him."

A part of Tom wanted to sneer, to hastily say that it was a simple fairy tale for whining children told to lull them off to sleep, but that hadn't been true, had it? He himself had held the Elder Wand in his grasp, felt the magic tingle the flesh of his hand, scorch it as it fought against him. He was not the true master of it, he never had been, and his lips twisted wryly as he regarded Potter with a heated glare- reminded, once more, that _he_ was the reason he was trapped here.

But Potter continued speaking unheeded, unaware or unconcerned by the intensity and the hatred within Tom's eyes. "D-death doesn't like it when people cheat him, or when they humiliate him. And I think y-you just about pushed him over the edge with your horcruxes," he said, and he rose a hand, gesturing to the diary that still sat on the desk, the cover of it lifting slightly with the angle of the bent spine.

"Yes, of course," Tom said, not bothering to hide the bitterness from seeping into his words. "Surely, I am trapped for all eternity because a bit of a bruised ego, and not for my mountain of misdeeds."

Potter bristled at this, shoulders pulling back as he sat a bit straighter, narrowing his gaze. "Well, you've killed plenty of other people. Why not haunt you with them? Why hand you all these...relics when he could just as easily have given you other things to taunt you? Like a wand that's absolutely useless to you now," he reasoned, mimicking the same mocking and bitterness from Tom's voice, the stammer of the cold gone from it as he was strengthened by his own resolve, the heat of his own veins.

His jaw clenched, nostrils flaring at the mention of a wand. And how absolutely no wand- his own, or the Elder- would respond to him anymore, his magical core gone and bare and just as achingly cold as everything else.

After a moment, Potter added, in a calmer voice, "You're being tormented by those specific ghosts, with those horcruxes, because I think he wants you to repent for making them. Maybe if you can salvage your soul, he'll let you free."

At the suggestion, Tom let out a mirthless, barking laugh, the sound making Harry shudder somewhat, shirking back some. "You've spent far too much time under Dumbledore's wing. Thinking that a bit of love, a bit of light and you can vanquish all the darkness." He then placed a hand over his heart, looking skyward with a twisted imitation of a look of indulgent concern, pity. "Poor Tom Riddle, if only he had had a mother to show him how to love, perhaps then he might not have grown up to have a heart of stone," he said, his voice sounding high and delicate with the false sadness he put in his words.

"No one has a heart of stone," Potter said softly. "And if you can just try to feel remorse-"

But Tom cut him off, his voice flat, curt, "Grow up, Potter. Dumbledore lied to you. Sometimes people do bad things because they're bad. I didn't do what I did because I was an orphan, or because I grew up in a government home," he paused, as if letting the weight of his words sink in before adding, "I did it because I wanted to. Because I liked knowing I had power, that I and I alone stood between life and death when someone sat begging at the end of my wand. I enjoyed killing them- all of them. Ask your filthy mudblood of a mother when you get back to Heaven, if you still don't believe me."

Potter stood, suddenly, causing Tom to press his back against the wall as he loomed over him- he wasn't really very tall, and Tom towered over him normally, but he had an advantage now that he stood. "You can tell me all you want that you don't give a damn about the cards you were dealt in life, but I know and somewhere deep down, you know too, that you're lying," he said, speaking through his teeth which seemed to still with the barely contained rage. "When you heard the prophecy and you selected me, it was because you saw the parallels between you and me. Half-blood, part muggle, part pure-blood. And then when we met in the Chamber, you pointed out those similarities once more. Orphans, alone in this world. A little similar in appearance.

"But we're not alike, not at all. And that's what kills you. Because while your father ran away from you and your mother, my father ran into death itself for me and my mother, dying to protect us. Because while my mother died, not begging for you to spare her but for you to spare _me_ , her _son,_ your own mother couldn't be bothered to live longer than an hour for you- her _son,_ " he said, and the malice and the anger and the hatred looked entirely improper on his young face, contorted his features in a way that might have otherwise made Tom laugh.

But it did not make him laugh, and he rose from the floor, Potter craning his neck suddenly to maintain eye contact with him. He wanted to reach out, tighten fingers over the neck swathed within the robe. But he knew it would do no good- whatever enchantment or curse that had protected Myrtle from his bruising touch would surely do the same with Potter, and relinquishing that information would be as good as relinquishing what small sliver of power he still maintained over him. The power of fear and intimidation.

So instead he hardened his gaze, stepping dangerously close to him and lowering his own head so he could be heard even as he whispered. "Your mother and father were nothing but filth. Mediocre, brazen witch and wizard who stalked after Dumbledore like sheep following a blind shepherd. It's of no coincidence that all three of them are dead, and by my hand and my orders."

He pursed his lips, continuing to loom over the smaller wizard. But Potter was resilient, a proper Gryffindor in every sense of the term, and did not shirk from beneath his tense gaze. Though of course, the fact that he was there at all seemed to be evidence of his petulance and facsimile bravery. Not too many would willingly step through the threshold that led to the Dark Lord's Hell, even if he was stripped of his magic.

But Potter wasn't most people. He was brash, ignorant. A lucky wizard who danced with Death several times before finally succumbing, hiding behind more powerful, more adept witches and wizards until he could hide no more. He was tenacious, that much was certain.

Undeterred by the dark current of Tom's voice, the sibilant way he spoke that made hair stand on end, made you lean forward to better hear him while simultaneously trying to squirm away, Potter said, "And the truly _sad_ and _pathetic_ thing is that you were so consumed by your lust for power, you couldn't even see the obvious. That the night you killed my mother- and the very reason why I can get through that door but you can't- is because the soul which you destroyed beyond recognition was so unstable that you made another horcrux."

Tom rose a brow, masking the surprise as quickly as it had come before saying, "Oh? I did? And what was that?"

"Me," he said simply.

Like the pieces of a puzzle coming together to form a picture, gears shifting into place. Tom reached out, grabbing hold of the desk to steady himself as he began to tremble with a sudden swell of emotions, of rage. A belligerent and oppressive need to hurt, to destroy, wrapping around him until he could see nothing through the veil of red, the muscles in his neck clenching as his teeth ground into each other. His lips twitched, his nostrils flattening as he breathed heavily, raggedly through them.

Images flashed before him, fragments of his life falling together like a shattered mirror, jagged edges of glass fitting into one another. Of Potter hissing parseltongue, speaking a dead and rare language against all logic, despite having nothing remarkable in his blood to dictate that particular skill. Of the failed attack of the Weasley patriarch, when fangs sunk so deep into flesh and blood and tissue that it should have been impossible for him to live, a matter of seconds the only thing that prevented him from slipping into the cold embrace of death. Of his other horcruxes, falling into the hands of Potter and his cohorts with such ease, almost as if he knew how to find them. As if they reached out to him, beckoned to him-

He lifted up the desk, the diary falling to the floor as Myrtle cowered below, tossing it across the room so that it slammed against the door, bouncing back with the sound of crackling wood. But it did not break, did not fall apart the way he wanted it to- the way he needed it to. He strode across the small room, Potter stumbling back and onto the bed to give him a wide berth, and grabbed a leg of the table, propping his foot upon the top as he pried the leg free. His muscles ached in protest, throbbing with the sudden outburst, but he paid it no mind. He was humming with energy, his nerves burning with the need to curse and hex and torture. The oh so familiar desire to grasp his wand and turn it upon those who failed him, who stepped too far in his path.

But he couldn't.

He didn't have a wand, because he was dead. Because his horcruxes were destroyed- because he himself had destroyed one of them!

With no wand to take hold of, the piece of wood was adequate enough, the end splintered and rough with the a twisted nail partially torn from it. And he turned upon the closest thing that he could see through his crimson vision- dragging the the weapon down in a swooping arc and into the thin door of his wardrobe.

It broke with a satisfying crack, and he continued to lurch into it until his breath came out in haggard pants, until the swooping curl of his hair fell into his eyes and further obstructed his gaze. Chips of wood flew through the air, thin strips falling to the floor as he continued his assault on the furniture.

A ferocious, animalistic growl escaped his throat as he swung the leg of the desk down once more, splitting through the wardrobe side. His shoulders heaved, searing in pain as he tossed the wooden slab aside, running a hand through his hair to push it back into it's polished coif. The anger had not quite dissipated, but he had as least indulged in his need for brutality, and though his muscles were burning in pain, his bones creaking with abuse, there was something wonderful about it. It almost felt like he was alive, again, the rush of adrenaline and destruction, the protest of his body as he continued to push the limitations of his mortality.

"Get out," he said, his eyes not leaving the dilapidated wardrobe, the doors falling from the hinges. There was a shuffle of clothing, shoes kicking on the floor.

Potter brushed passed him, fingers wrapping around the doorknob before he hesitated, turning around to face Tom. "When you were sleeping, I read the diary. Myrtle's been writing to you."

And with that, he pulled the door open, stepping out into the oblivion.

He left Tom, and with his departure he took the very calm with it, the room once more descending into madness. Cacophonous screams, louder and shriller than ever before now that Tom had remembered the purity of quiet, fists pounding heavily against wall. Nails digging and scraping into plaster, wheezing breaths through crushed and broken ribs.

-xXx-

Reading the diary wasn't the only thing Harry had done while Tom slept. He had also conjured up for him some new bed sheets, crisp and white and tucked under the corners of the thin and uncomfortable mattress. A new blanket sat on top, scratchy and coarse on his skin just as everything else was. Folded on top of it all was a new oxford, black and simple.

He shrugged it on, knowing that it would do nothing to fight against the bitter cold, but feeling some semblance of control. As if he wasn't falling apart at the very seams.

He grasped hold of the bed, tugging it sharply as his knees bent in the exertion. His father standing upon it made it feel as if he were attempting to lift a boulder, and his feet scraped across the floor as he lost balance.

He did not know how long he struggled, but eventually he had maneuvered it well enough that he could pull it to the door, kicking aside the broken pieces of his wardrobe. His father had, after much straining, stepped down from it, and was now standing on the floor as he continued to beat against the wall. His fist was an awful, stomach churning array of colors. Violets and grays and browns and sickly yellows that ran down the side of his arm, down his wrist. The blood that marred the wall was congealed and dried, deep maroon while the fresh blood splattered against it like brilliant rubies.

Tom Riddle Senior was relentless, but Tom had no intention of assisting him. Either his bones or the wall would have to break before he got hold of the ring within its depths. He would make sure of it.

-xXx-

He had managed to pry the diary away from Myrtle's clutched hands, prying impossibly strong fingers that had embedded into it away and hoisting up his leg to kick her sharply in the head, sending her reeling back. His head pulsed with the cries that ricocheted in his mind, but he did his best to ignore it, to try to make all the discordant sounds into white noise.

He held the diary to his chest, settling down on the bed, springs creaking beneath his weight. He propped the pillow up, resting his back on it, and bent his legs as he settled the diary against them. He opened it, dark eyes scanning the words written on the first few pages.

 _'Nasty boy! Stop making fun of me!'_ was written in messy scrawls, letters too close together so that he strained to decipher them. _'Go away!'_

And then, in large, bold letters that left an imprint into the page from how hard she pressed the quill into them, _'BIG YELLOW EYES.'_

The phrase seemed to be a mantra, and it was scratched down the pages, over and over again, becoming larger and bolder and messier with each line. He flipped through several of the pages, covered in the same description. _Big yellow eyes, big yellow eyes, big yellow eyes._

It was the basilisk, he knew, the very last thing she had seen before her death. The day was, if he were being perfectly honest, rather insignificant in his mind. It had been so long ago, such a singular, inconsequential event in his own personal timeline that it had hardly mattered to commit it to memory. The only thing that had truly set it apart from the other memories of his days at the school, that bled into each other, was for the fact that it had been the first time he had killed someone, though indirectly.

At the moment, it had been out of sheer necessity. He had not known she was in the lavatory when he entered it, and by the time he had been aware of her presence, it was too late. The sink at the center of the room had already been parted, plumbing and porcelain fixtures separating into an abyss and the emerald crown of the basilisk had already emerged, jaw falling apart to reveal long, curved fangs.

She had seen it before she saw him, and he commanded it to kill her.

He supposed he could have used a memory charm on her, but it was simply more fun to see what Salazar's beast could do. To watch as light left her eyes, as if a flip had been switched, as she fell to a useless heap of robes and hair and skin and bones.

It wasn't nearly as exhilarating as he had always thought it would be, though, and he was a little disappointed with the suddenness of it all. There simply wasn't a spark, had been no terror in her eyes as she had hardly even understood what was happening to her, what Tom was about to do and what he was capable of. No pleas, no tortured cries.

And so it had faded away in his memory, as ambivalent recollections tend to do.

He had made it nearly a quarter of the way through the diary- constant, wretched writings of big, yellow eyes- before the words changed. He slowed, a thumb settling on the page to hold it open as he read.

 _'Awful, nasty, terrible boy!'_

 _'Killed me. KILLED KILLED KILLED!'_

 _'He's rotten and hideous!'_

 _'But he is dead now too!'_

 _'He is rotting inside the ground, poisoning the worms that think even in death he might be good!'_

He threw the book away from him, not bothering to read any further. It flew across the room, bouncing off the wall and falling at Myrtle's feet. She sniffled, a brief pause in her cries, as she shuffled towards it, gasping hold of it and holding it protectively against her chest, tucking it below her chin. She began screaming once more, with those merlot lips of hers, and Tom screamed back, slamming his hands down on the mattress for emphasis and gripping the sheets in his fingers so that knuckles turned white.

"Pity I didn't even get to enjoy your death!" he roared at her, but his words were drowned out in her unending shrieks.

-xXx-

The pillow did nothing to muffle out the noise, but Tom still continued to wrap it around his head, hands pressing it down on either side as darkness fell over him. There was no sleep to be had, though he tried. It was even more torturous now that he had remembered what it felt like to sleep, his head heavy and body giving in to the exhaustion. He shouldn't have ever slept when Potter visited, and he cursed the younger wizard for ever letting him. It was a taunt, a promise of what had once been only for it to never be within his grasp again.

But he tried, with nothing left to do, he tried.

He was not sure how much time had passed since his death, and a part of him did not want to know. For whether it had only been a few days or a thousand years, the answer would never satisfy him. It would always be too little, no amount as long as eternity, and it would always have been too long that he suffered and rotted.

His thoughts were disrupted by a sharp, painful prod into his stomach, just above his navel. He startled, tossing the pillow from him.

His eyes met obsidian, crinkled and small between the folds of skin, the round face of someone who often gave into and indulged in life's decadence. Bright orange hair fell in tightly bunched ringlets, a manicured, red fingernail digging deeply into his torso, disappearing into the black fabric of his shirt. Hepzibah Smith had finally joined the others in her torment of him, not waiting for him to find the cup on his own.

He tried to bat her hand away, but just as the others she was impossibly strong and solid and was unable to, fingers uselessly pulling at her plump hand. "I don't know where it is!" he said, yelling over the wails that shook the walls of the room.

Her skin was just as translucent as the others, and he could see the rivers of blue veins beneath, and Hepzibah hardly even looked recognizable without the thick coating of makeup, the deep circles of rouge on her cheeks. She continued to poke at him though, digging deep into the soft flesh that seemed to give way at her touch.

"I haven't found it!" he said, as if she didn't hear him the first time. Eyes flicked up to him, a pointed and aware look to them despite the gauze coating them as she jabbed even harder.

" _Here!"_ she asserted, and for a moment he was startled. None of them had spoken to him, if even one, singular word.

He tried to move, wriggling away from her, but she followed after him, unrelenting.

" _Here! Here! Here!"_ she said, her voice pitched and manic and tilting on the edge of something inhuman as she punctuated each syllable by digging into his muscles.

He needed to find the cup.

-xXx-

There was nothing left.

He had torn apart all the walls, except for the small expanse that had kept Bertha Jorkins trapped, kept his father occupied as his fist split against it.

He had dug up the ceiling, and now a thick coating of dust covered the piles of wood, the joists in the floor, which he had ripped up once more, a desperate attempt to find the damned cup.

His mattress was nothing except foam and springs and tattered fabrics.

There was nothing to search.

There was no place it could be.

He didn't have it, and yet she continued to prod at him, his torso red and welted.

"It's not here!" he yelled, his patience going thin. He had nothing. No silence. No peace. No warmth. And now he could not even rest in the restlessness, was unable to close his eyes and maybe pretend he was anywhere else. The finger digging into him made that an impossibility.

" _HERE!"_ She hissed, and his lips twitched, a flash of understanding settling into his muddled brain.

 _'Here?'_ he thought, eyes widening. His arms wrapped around him, a pathetic sort of embrace that did nothing to stop her assaulting finger, stained red from where she had split his skin with the sharp point of her nail.

" _Here!"_ she said, as if in agreement, curls bobbing with the motion.

He swallowed, his head shaking weakly. "No," he said, voice trembling. No, he wouldn't do _that_. He couldn't do that.

She frowned, the red stain on her lips feathering. _"HERE!"_

-xXx-

He held the piece of wood in his hands, rough and tattered from whatever it had been torn from. From the walls, the floor, the desk, the wardrobe. Everything was in pieces, and he could no longer distinguish the piles of rotten and moldy wood from the others. But the piece was hefty, coming to a splintered point. It was strong enough, thick enough. It would not cave in or snap. It would break through.

Eyes flicked upward, meeting obsidian once more and he grimaced. He didn't want to. But it would make her stop. And that was all he wanted.

A part of his mind, a part that was clearer and untainted by desperation, not fuzzy with the madness that he loomed just on the outskirts of, was aghast at just far he had fallen. How the once neatly arranged ebony locks were now in disarray, curls sticking at awkward angles and hanging in front of his face, properly disheveled. They appeared gray, from the few strands that he could see, coated in the dust and particles that had fallen from the ceiling that he had never bothered to shake away.

And his eyes, he was sure, were wide with his corruption, his skillfully trained mask no longer in place, unable to keep locked away the overwhelming emotions that pummeled into him with such force he was brought to his knees. Desperation. Need. Agony. Fear. Humiliation.

There was no more room for hatred, no more room for anger and greed and for the desire to hurt.

The only desire he had was for everything to stop, for everyone to shut up and leave him alone.

He swallowed, hesitating only a moment before holding the stake of wood against him, positioning it carefully. _"HERE!"_ Hepzibah exclaimed, nodding her head, curls tumbling over her wide shoulders.

And he plunged it in, wincing and crying out as it pierced through his flesh.

-xXx-

It was harder than he had thought to stab someone. Or perhaps harder to stab oneself, the natural instincts wanting to move away from perceived danger, his innate need to protect himself making his shove of the wood weak and unyielding against his skin. His muscle protested, acting as a barrier, but he continued to dig, his hand shaking as he fumbled with the stake, slick and slippery with blood.

He gasped at the pain, the sear that made his abdomen contract, and he sputtered, his vision swimming before him. He breathed sharply, trying to quell the spike of adrenaline surging within him, trying in vain to control it long enough to finish out his task.

" _HERE! HERE! HERE!"_

It took precisely seven stabs into his own stomach before he could see it, a shimmer of something gold nestled within the pinks and grays and the red. So much red, his blood staining and saturating his shirt and skin, unbearably hot on his flesh. Quivering hands, too weak and heavy, released the wood, wet and soggy and crimson, and he slumped back against the wall. He was vaguely aware that he was convulsing, sputtered as he tasted something tangy and metallic filling his mouth, slipping between lips.

He was swooning, the room spinning around him and he closed his eyes against it, star bursts forming on the blank space of his eyelids.

" _HERE!"_ he heard, seconds before a hand plunged into the wound.

He lurched forward, screaming in pain as fingers plucked deep within him. He rose hands, wrapping them around her wrist and trying to pull her away. But they shook so violently, and he was unable to grip, so coated in blood were they. It was anguish, more than he had ever known. Even dying had not been this painful; it felt as if flames were lit within him, burning and scorching him from within, licking at his organs and alighting his nerves.

It was violating, disconcerting to watch as her wrist disappeared within him, to feel her fingers wiggle and grip as they tried to grasp hold of something.

" _HERE! HERE! HERE!"_

His vision gave way into dots, pinpricks of bright white, and his head fell to the side, unable to remain steadied. His stomach clenched, overcome with nausea and he felt something rise in his esophagus, like a fist shoved within it.

The hand finally retreated- _"HERE! HERE!"-_ and he felt something heavy go with it, something hard and metal. Hepzibah moved away from his side, and with no one left to support him, he fell from where he was perched, slipping between a plank of wood beneath where the floor had been. His head thwacked against it, intensifying the dots burning into the back of his eyelids, the vertigo as if he was moving, independent from the room and his body.

His hand coiled around his stomach, wrapping tightly against if as if he could hold all the blood and tissues within him if he just applied enough pressure. He wondered if it was possible to die, if he would sink even further into death, into darkness and nothingness and shadows. If eternity would be spent like this, cowering within the rotten foundation of a haunted room, the screams and the wheezing and the pounding of fists and excited calls of _'HERE!'_ a background of indifference, unconcerned and unbothered by the man writhing below them. That he would be stuck forever in this state between life and death, too weak to move forward, too cursed to have anything beyond the four walls even if he could.

He coughed, groaning as the motion racked his body, as blood splattered before him, coating his chin. He could taste nothing but it, dirty pennies and vinegar.

This was death, this was Hell. He was not even a shell of what he once was, he was something weak and pitiful and deranged. And he would rot with the rest of the room, forgotten by the world that moved below him. Or above him.

And in the wave of thoughts that washed over him, turbulent and indistinct as they had been in the void- rabbits twitching from rafters, crackling green light flashing before him- there was only one thought that burned brighter than the others, that he was able to grasp onto.

He had only known peace when Potter had been here, and he desperately longed for that feeling of completeness, of wholeness once more. How cruel, that the one he hated most, the one he blamed for his residence in this damnation, was the one who seemed to be his only beacon.

He faded into the black, the screams sounding more and more distant as he sank into nothingness.

-xXx-

When he opened his eyes, it was to emerald, brilliant and glistening. And he wondered if he was reliving his death. Just as Myrtle recalled with fervor the big, yellow eyes of Slytherin's beast, he would recall the burst of the Killing Curse as it hurtled back towards him.

Cast by his own hand.

His own wand.

He could blame Potter all he wanted.

But he was the reason he was dead.

He closed his eyes, not wanting to see the condemning color any further.

-xXx-

It was warm, wonderfully pleasantly warm, and for a second he thought that perhaps he was outside, under the sun on a particularly lovely Summer day. But that was not possible, as the warmth only radiated from one side of him, the rest so cold.

He curled into it, slowly, achingly, seeking out the heat.

There was a moment of hesitation, but soon it wrapped around him, and he gave a contented sigh.

-xXx-

A page turned.

Someone sniffled.

Tom turned, trying to shift on his side, but he was pinned down, something wrapped around him and holding him in place. He reached up, trying to find the force that held him there, fingers curling around something- a blanket? A cloak? And he tried to pry it away but he couldn't, the fabric slipping from his feeble grasp.

"Sorry," a familiar voice said, and a weight moved from beside him, the heat leaving with it. But he was able to grasp the blanket, and it moved freely now. He wrapped it tightly around himself, trying to recapture some of the warmth that had surrounded him before. It was not the same, and he opened his eyes, blinking as the room settled before him.

It was the same room he had been in since he died, the same room from his childhood. But it was clean and complete, order restored to it once more. There was even a chair at the desk, Myrtle sitting upon it and quietly scribbling in the journal. He made to move up, but stopped when his vision blurred, the drab and monochromatic colors of the room blending together.

"Easy," the voice said again, and a hand settled on his shoulder. "I don't know what you did, but I had a hard time healing you, and I have no idea how long you were like that for." When the room stilled, settling once more, he looked to Harry, looking far bulkier than ever with multiple cloaks wrapped around him.

Tom furrowed his brow before he remembered falling into the torn apart floor with an arm curled around, forgotten by Hepzibah now that she had her prized possession, the horcrux that her death had forged. He remembered being enveloped in black, in shadows; of furry white feet kicking erratically against a noose, curses setting the air ablaze.

"What _did_ you do?" Harry asked, his nose crinkled in disgust as if recalling the sight of all the blood, mangled flesh.

Tom looked around the room, his eyes settling on Hepzibah. She was perched in the corner, pressed against the door. She swished the cup in her hands, swirling whatever liquid resided in its well. It was tarnished with his blood, looking almost copper. Beside her, crouched his father, twirling the ring between his fingers. Had Harry pulled that from the walls when he righted the room?

"I found the final horcrux," was all he said, his voice hoarse from disuse.

Harry's jaw fell open, lips parting in a question before he understood, green eyes flicking down to Tom's abdomen. "Bloody hell," he muttered below his breath.

"It certainly is," Tom said plainly, chuckling despite himself when a blush crept up Harry's collar, pursing his lips at his poor wording. He cleared his throat, wincing at the burn, at how raw it all felt. "What are you doing here? Why do you keep showing up?"

"This time you asked me to," he said simply, placing something on the desk. It was a book, a thick and tattered book with yellow pages that bent together, white lines running down the spine from where the side panel cracked, peeling away in flakes. It was missing a cover, and what appeared to be the first few pages, the publication page faded so that even while squinting he could not read it. It was a book that was either well loved, or very hated.

"I don't recall asking," he said, but if he had, it couldn't have been a surprise. He didn't recall much distinctly, events bound together out of order from the moment he watched as a wrist disappeared within him.

Harry shrugged. "You did. And I vomited the moment I opened the door- which took some doing, since you barricaded yourself in," he said pointedly, as if waiting for Tom to apologize for inconveniencing him. When none came, he added, "I couldn't exactly leave you like that."

Tom scoffed. "No, that doesn't quite fit your image, does it?"

Harry skewed his lips, looking as if he was about to say something before deciding against it, his eyes softening. "I've been informed by people that I have a bit of a hero complex," was all he said, lips quirking somewhat with what might have been a memory. But he sobered almost instantly, wrapping his arms around his chest, as he said, "You can try to end this. Just try for some remorse." He spoke quietly, as if worried that Tom might react belligerently once more and not wanting to shatter the calm between them.

Why was everything so quiet when he was here? Why would Hell offer him such reprieve?

But there was no more room within him for anger or hate, replaced by a coil of tightly wound emotions. Desperation. Need. Humiliation. And in a quiet, resigned voice, Tom said, "If this doesn't make me regret it, nothing will. And for the record, I do."

"Feeling regret because of the consequences you face isn't the same as feeling remorse," Harry said. "You killed these people, Tom. They had families, friends, who missed them. Until you realize that, you'll never get to leave here."

He hated him. More than he had ever hated anyone or anything, Tom Marvolo Riddle hated Harry James Potter. He hated him for that prophecy, he hated him for the horcrux he had unknowingly placed within him, he hated him for awaking after death, as if it were just a deep sleep. And he hated him for sauntering through, coming and going from his Hell, not a care in the world. He hated that he was warm and that the room tried to steal that warmth from him, hated that magic came off of him and pulsing waves, singing the air. He hated that he wouldn't leave him alone.

"Why did you come here?" Tom asked again, interrupting Harry who had opened his mouth by adding, "And don't tell me it was because I asked you to. You and I both know you can ignore it if you want. So why are you toiling away your own eternity in Hell instead of Heaven? Aren't there enough splendors for you, or do you just enjoy watching my damnation?" He hadn't meant to sound that way, so defeated, so broken down. It was difficult to sound anything but, and he could no longer care to replace his mask of cool indifference.

Harry bit his lip in thought, chewing onto it for a second as he looked down at the floor. Finally, he said, "It's not Hell, but it isn't really Heaven. Everyone keeps telling me I'll get used to it, but I can't. I just feel..." he paused, looking away and around the room as he ruminated for the correct words to say. "Like something's missing, I guess. It's like I forgot something, and I know I did but I have no idea what it is, where it could be, or why I need it. Coming here, I don't feel like that. Not so much at least."

"You're a horcrux," Tom said, hissing over the word. It seemed so obvious now, so clear that _of course Harry Potter was a horcrux, why had he not seen it in life?_

He nodded. "Yes, maybe that's it. I'm not sure but...I feel like I have to help you."

"Sorry to disappoint you, Potter, but I can't feel remorse. I never have, and I never will," he said. He wanted to tell him to leave, to forget about it and never wander this way again. It was a waste of time, his sins too many, his soul too fractured. But the words died in his throat, something selfish telling him to keep them to himself. If Potter left- and never returned- then there would be nothing but screams and wheezes, eyes looking behind him, constantly boring into him but never actually seeing. There would be nothing but death and the pungent smell of rotting flesh and soil, nothing but ice.

He hated Harry Potter because, if he were being honest, he didn't really want him to leave.

His downward spiral into insanity was seemingly complete.

"I can help you, if you want. Try to...teach you," Potter said. Tom looked at him, and the lips that were beginning to turn blue, quivering somewhat as he fought against the chill. He was so terribly naive if he thought that Lord Voldemort could be taught remorse as if it were just a particularly difficult subject, one that he struggled with.

But when he opened his mouth, instead of telling him this, he said, "Alright." A look of shock fell over Harry, as if he hadn't been expecting him to accept his help. But then he grinned, and small dips appeared in his cheeks, little half moons. Dimples.

He was so innocent, it honestly made Tom feel sick.

But it was better than being alone, and if Harry was naive and stupid enough to trap himself within Tom Riddle's Hell, so be it.

-xXx-

 **Author's Note:** I hope you all liked this update! Please review! Follow me on tumblr for sneak peeks to chapters, stories, for prompts, and just for fandom love. Thanks for reading!


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